Little Green Men and their ‘Indispensible’ Big Green Lobbyists

Today E&E News reports (subscription required) green group faux-rage that industry reps were consulted on drafting an amendment by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to (IMO, rather unwisely) grant the Democrats a one-year reprieve from their looming political nightmare of EPA threatening to actually try and regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources by regulation under a Clean Air Act never designed for such foolishness.

Such unseemly whimpering is about as credible as the greens’ phony “hacked emails!” outrage, over what was from all appearances a whistleblower releasing “ClimateGate” email evidence of dirty green tricks. These are the same crowd whose slimy green tactics include stealing my trash on a weekly basis and working with, e.g., the Guardian to dishonestly cobble together unrelated, out-of-context (unlike ClimateGate) excerpts from emails to paint a false picture. (“Greens involved in journalism process!”; sadly, the Guardian never called me for their “story” about, well, me, so I must confess I wasn’t involved).

Specifically, E&E notes how:

“the Washington Post reported yesterday that [Bracewell & Giuliani's Jeff Holmstead] and another former EPA official, Roger Martella, ‘helped craft the original amendment Murkowski planned to offer on the floor last fall.’…

Environmentalists pounced on the reports as evidence that coal and oil interests are behind Murkowski’s efforts. ‘We now have proof that lobbyists for Big Oil, dirty coal and other special interests are directly involved in recent attempts to bail out big polluters and gut the Clean Air Act,’ said a Sierra Club press release. ‘What’s more, these big polluter lobbyists are the same former Bush administration officials who completely disregarded the Clean Air Act and even disobeyed the Supreme Court for years.’

Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, said, ‘It’s pretty clear who’s supporting and behind Murkowski. It’s clearly the coal cabal and others who would try to block EPA from taking action.’”

Ahem. Yes, it’s pretty clear who’s behind what. Shall we set up shop outside the Environment and Public Works’ Majority offices to see who’s working on things, kids? To discover the horror that your team goes to the unconscionable lengths of asking outside experts for their expertise?

So, on top of raising again that uncomfortable little Enron thing, allow me refresh the greens’ memories about how terrible it is that industry be involved in the process:

United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) is a “Baptists and bootleggers” coalition of pressure groups like NRDC with mostly rent-seeking industry. like Duke Energy, Exelon and other energy players who’ve crafted a scheme for windfalls at your expense as their price for pushing Gang Green’s agenda.

Together, USCAP companies seek a pact with the governing class and ideologues to secure their own future and was even credited with providing the “blueprint” for the Waxman-Markey House cap-and-trade bill.

This according to that right-wing rag the Los Angeles Times in the article titled “Industry leaders join Obama on emissions limits: Companies want to help shape global warming legislation in Congress, figuring the right plan could help profits. Their support could be key to pushing it through”.

The paper acknowledged how USCAP companies helped to push this enormous energy tax hike past the finish line in the House, singling out Duke Energy and Alcoa for “marshaling votes on Capitol Hill, working behind the scenes with committee negotiators and providing what House leaders call a blueprint for compromise.” In his victory lap, bill co-author Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts cited this cynical profiteering-slash-toadying, calling their support “indispensable.”

E&E News failed to mention such matters. It does seem, however, that Big Green is very upset about the practice by its Big Business wing to be a key player in the Greens’ effort to impose the biggest tax increase in American history, and that we should renew our efforts to tell the public about this.