- Activism
- Congress
- Corporations
- Elections
- General
- International
- Obama Administration
- Special Interests
As U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello was considering how to vote on an important piece of climate change legislation in June, the freshman congressman’s office received at least six letters from two Charlottesville-based minority organizations voicing opposition to the measure.
The letters, as it turns out, were forgeries.
“They stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization,” said Tim Freilich, who sits on the executive committee of Creciendo Juntos, a nonprofit network that tackles issues related to Charlottesville’s Hispanic community. “It’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.”
Update: Representative Ed Markey plans to launch a Congressional investigation:
“This fraud on Congress shows that some opponents of clean energy have resorted to forgery and theft to block progress.“This is an appalling abuse, and Congressman Tom Perriello deserves great credit for seeing through it and casting a vote that will create clean energy jobs in Virginia and throughout the United States. I encourage all Members of Congress to be on the lookout for other suspicious and illegal materials.
“My Select Committee will immediately begin an investigation of the extent and scope of this activity.”
Update 2: John Kerry has a blog post about this at Daily Kos.


Questionnaire/Methodology:
Publics Want More Government Action on Climate Change: Global Poll –
Energy sector companies that increased their lobbying expenditures the most (by dollar amount) between the second quarter of 2008 and the same time in 2009:
Organization Q2, 2009 Q2, 2008 Difference Chevron Corp $6,015,000 $3,254,000 $2,761,000 ConocoPhillips $3,269,993 $1,652,679 $1,617,314 American Electric Power $2,865,380 $1,429,085 $1,436,295 BP $4,030,000 $2,620,000 $1,410,000 American Wind Energy Assn $1,833,426 $460,379 $1,373,047 American Petroleum Institute $1,860,000 $1,020,000 $840,000 Energy Future Holdings Corp $1,590,000 $765,980 $824,020 Arch Coal $940,000 $310,000 $630,000 Edison Electric Institute $2,600,000 $1,973,371 $626,629 Devon Energy $650,000 $200,000 $450,000
US_energy_efficiency_full_report –
Press release from McKinsey below the fold.