PolluterWatch:

PolluterWatch Director Kert Davies sent a letter to Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) urging him to release information about any conversations he may have had with lobbying firms or other potential employers regarding a job once he retires from the Senate early next year. In the letter Davies also calls on Dorgan to state unequivocally that he will refrain from engaging prospective employers and focus solely on his work as a Senator throughout the remainder of his term.

Here is the full letter:

Office of Senator Byron Dorgan
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3405

Senator Dorgan,

It is no secret that Americans are increasingly cynical about their government. With influence peddling as a $4.5 billion a year “growth” industry, there are now 1,300 Washington lobbyists for every Senator. The revolving door between K Street and Capitol Hill does nothing to improve people’s faith in the independence of their elected leaders.

Throughout your public service career, you have been a strong leader on a wide range of issues including several key energy initiatives that are essential to America’s future. Given how much the nation’s clean energy future is at stake this year, I was disappointed when, earlier this month, you announced your decision to retire – and that you are considering several career options, including working “on energy policy in the private sector.”

As a longtime member of Congress I am sure you are aware that, regardless of your actual intentions, this language is often code for legislators who have begun trolling for an influence peddling job after they leave Congress. And, the path from public servant to influence peddler is a sadly well-worn one: Rep. Bob Livingston, Senator John Breaux, Rep. Billy Tauzin, and Senator Trent Lott.

I recall seeing you as a speaker at the oil industry’s controversial, pay-to-play forum on December 1st, just five weeks before you announced your retirement. As you will recall, this highly questionable exercise was one in which Newsweek was caught renting out its name, credibility and top pundit to big oil’s influence peddler, Jack Gerard. We were able to document Mr. Gerard’s unwillingness to answer basic questions about the purchase price of Newsweek’s credibility, and you can see the results at youtube.com/polluterwatch.

We are all confident that you will have no shortage of job options open to you at the end of this year. Why let dirty energy lobbyists, who are working overtime to imperil America’s clean energy interests, threaten your legacy as an independent advocate for what’s best for North Dakota and the people of this country?

To prevent that from happening, I call on you to:

· List the dirty energy lobbyists and their respective clients with whom you have had contact about your next job.

· Release all details of phone calls, emails or meetings you have had with prospective employers from energy interests who have lobbied you or your office. Of particular interest are Washington-area lobbying and public relations firms.

· Pledge that you will wait until after an energy bill is passed this year to engage in any further discussions about future employment with interests that lobby you.

This year the Senate is likely to debate and act on several key pieces of legislation that will shape the future of the American energy industry, our economy and our efforts to fight pollution. Regardless of your final positions on these bills, I am sure you agree that Americans deserve to be absolutely certain that your votes reflect your genuine view of what is best for them.

I am sure that you would not allow future career prospects to influence your legislative judgment. However, by releasing your records and pledging to refrain from any employment discussions, you can avoid creating any perception to the contrary.

Sincerely,

Kert Davies

PolluterWatch Director
Greenpeace

On the heels of harsh statements from CREW and Greenpeace, two additional public interest groups have now called on Senator Murkowski to come clean and return $35,000 in campaign contributions from the lobbyists who wrote her Dirty Air Act amendment.

The Alaska Public Interest Research Group wrote the following:

It’s certainly reasonable for elected officials to seek out advice and input from issue experts when crafting legislation. That sort of thing happens all the time, with non-profits, academics, and administration officials alike. But when corporations make big campaign contributions, and then their lobbyists are handed the pen to write legislation that could benefit the corporation’s short term bottom line, it just doesn’t look right.

To get rid of the appearance of these pay-to-play politics, Senator Murkowski could do two things: She could abandon her amendment that would prevent a step forward on climate change. Or she could give back the thirty five grand, along with any other corporate contributions tied to lobbyists seeking to influence crucial energy policy decisions.

In an ideal world, she would do both.

And Public Citizen wrote:

To remove the appearance of corruption, Murkowski should give back the $35,000 and any other contributions she has received from clients of Holmstead and Matella. But if she really wants to show Alaskans that she values representative democracy over pay-to-play politics, then she should become a part of the solution to the underlying problem. She should support an alternative to the current corrosive electoral system and become a co-sponsor of the Fair Elections Now Act. This bill would allow candidates for Congress to run without taking a dime over $100 from individual supporters.

But then again, a fair system with real accountability might make it tougher for polluters to prevail. It might not appeal to Murkowski and her big oil buddies, but it sure sounds like a good idea to us.

Curiously, Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon has repeatedly ignored EnviroKnow’s requests for comment for the past four months. This may have something to do with it.

I mentioned on Tuesday that the Washington Post had revealed the fact that Senator Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act amendment was written in part by corporate lobbyists.

Polluter Watch, a project of Greenpeace, has fired off a letter to Senator Boxer requesting an ethics inquiry.

Here is the full text of the letter, via PolluterWatch:

Dear Senator Boxer-

We are concerned that top Bush Administration EPA officials, now employed as high-priced coal, utility and oil lobbyists, had a strong hand in crafting the language of Senator Lisa Murkowski’s proposed amendment to strip authority from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The Washington Post has exposed a significant role played by Jeffrey R. Holmstead (now of Bracewell & Guiliani) and Roger R. Martella Jr. (now with Sidley Austin) in writing and developing the strategy around Senator Murkowski’s legislation.

While at first Holmstead acknowledged his involvement, he, Murkowski and Martella have all quickly sought to minimize the lobbyists’ involvement with claims of “technical expertise,” from these supposedly “nationally recognized experts.”

That description would be laughable, if this issue weren’t so serious. During their public “service,” Holmstead and Martella were among the most aggressive of the Bush operatives working against the nation’s clean energy interests and working for the Bush EPA that stonewalled regulation of greenhouse gases after the landmark 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

The fact that we paid them with our tax money to undermine the national interest is simply adding insult to injury. We think the public deserves at least an inquiry from the Senate Committee on Ethics into the depth of the relationship between Senator Murkowski’s staff and these two lobbyists. The public deserves to know if the situation documented by the Post is acceptable to the Senate.

To some observers, this seems to be business-as-usual for Washington, DC, where the revolving door spins freely between the legislative and regulatory branches of government and the corporate lobbying influence peddling sector. We think the last place these guys should be is within a mile of public policy, and that the best thing that can be done is to keep a very hot spotlight on them so they don’t do more damage to America’s interests.

Sincerely,

Kert Davies
PolluterWatch Director

Here is the letter:

CAAletter –

kumi-naidoo-letter-to-obama –

I’ve written several times now about Tuesday’s climate policy briefing hosted by Newsweek magazine and the American Petroleum Institute.

Here is the full transcript of the event:

23527903-Newsweek-Dialogue-Series-Climate-and-Energy-Policy-Moving-12-1-09 –

About a month ago, a strange email hit the inboxes of many congressional staffers. It was an invitation to an ‘Executive Forum’ on climate and energy policy hosted by the American Petroleum Institute. What was strange about this invitation was the sender of the email and the co-host of the policy forum: Newsweek magazine. The event is scheduled for today at 4pm.

Greenpeace’s Executive Director Phil Radford, understandably, took issue with this when the event was announced:

At present, the panel’s only member is American Petroleum Institute (API) President Jack Gerard.As you know, Mr. Gerard is the nation’s top registered lobbyist for Big Oil. API and its biggest member, ExxonMobil, have aggressively lobbied against global warming policy solutions that will inevitably limit global consumption of oil. API and its members have spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade alone on propaganda efforts and front groups to undercut public confidence in the wide and deep global scientific consensus that global warming is real, that human consumption of fossil fuels is driving it, and that the problem is a serious threat to America and the rest of the world.

Greenpeace was not alone in its concerns:

“You’re selling access,” said Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. “Newsweek is using its reputation as a great news organization to convene these officeholders to talk about public policy. Then it’s renting out a space at the table for one of its customers who would not be at the table if not for giving money to Newsweek.”

Upping the ante before today’s big event, Greenpeace called for the event to be canceled and issued the following statement:

“Big Oil is buying access to our elected leaders by paying Newsweek to host this forum, and it must be called off,” Radford said. “Gerard and API will stop at nothing to stall progress on clean energy and climate solutions. I’m amazed Newsweek is endangering its reputation by renting its banner and top pundit to Big Oil. This forum is pay-to-play propaganda.”

In response to this, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman provided EnviroKnow with the following statement via email:

Rep. Ed Markey, the chief sponsor of the House cap-and-trade bill and a leading environmental advocate, is a full participant in the open, on-the-record discussion with no control by API over the questions or flow. Dem Sen Byron Dorgan is also participating and will reflect various views in Dem caucus. Rep Fred Upton, who opposed the House bill, will also participate. I see nothing wrong with an open, on-the-record balanced discussion like this. Newsweek has a long tradition of enviro reporting, including our annual green issue.

We’ll have more on this after tonight’s event.

Update: Talking Points Memo has now picked up this story.

Greenpeace press release via email.

Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford today called on Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham and the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) Jack Gerard to cancel a controversial, pay-to-play “forum” scheduled today in the US Capitol.

API and Newsweek have avoided answering basic questions about the lopsided panel – Gerard, the sponsor, is the only announced speaker – and how much API paid to rent Newsweek’s banner and columnist Howard Fineman’s time.

The event will be held in the Mansfield Room of the US Capitol.

The forum is being billed as a discussion about the effort to address climate change. It is being held amidst a congressional debate on clean energy and climate legislation and one week before world leaders meet to negotiate a global climate deal in Copenhagen, Denmark. In a widely distributed invitation to the forum, Newsweek revealed that numerous members of Congress had been invited.

Radford and his staff have repeatedly asked questions about the forum’s costs and lack of balance. Newsweek public relations staff admitted to Radford during a call that the forum was the only one that had been held in the Capitol while legislation of the same topic was being considered.

“Big Oil is buying access to our elected leaders by paying Newsweek to host this forum, and it must be called off,” Radford said. “Gerard and API will stop at nothing to stall progress on clean energy and climate solutions. I’m amazed Newsweek is endangering its reputation by renting its banner and top pundit to Big Oil. This forum is pay-to-play propaganda.”

On November 5, 2009, Greenwire broke the news about these forums. It quoted Washington and Lee University journalism ethics professor Edward Wasserman saying: “You’re selling access. Newsweek is using its reputation as a great news organization to convene these officeholders to talk about public policy. Then it’s renting out a space at the table for one of its customers who would not be at the table if not for giving money to Newsweek.”

Newsweek has stated that the event, which is scheduled for 4PM in the Mansfield Room of the US Capitol, is open to members of the press.

This is a guest post from Daniel Kessler, Media Officer at Greenpeace.

On November 16th, two Greenpeace activists from Germany and Italy and two members of the press from India and Italy, all of whom were traveling on valid business and journalist visas, were picked up and detained by Indonesian police. They were on their way to meet the villagers of Teluk Meranti, who have been supporting Greenpeace in its efforts to highlight rainforest and peatland destruction in the Kampar Peninsula–ground zero for climate change. The police also took into custody an activist from Belgium who had been working at our Climate Defenders Camp there.

Despite the validity of their travel documents and the absence of any wrongdoing, two of the activists and both journalists are now being deported by immigration authorities on questionable and seemingly contrived grounds, even though no formal deportation permits have been issued. Just a few days before, immigration authorities deported eleven other international Greenpeace activists who participated in a non-violent direct action on November 12th, in a concession where APRIL, one of Indonesia’s largest pulp and paper companies, is clearing rainforest and draining peatland on the Peninsula.

We set up the Climate Defenders Camp to bring attention to role of deforestation as a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions in advance of December’s Copenhagen climate negotiations. If we are stop climate change, we must end global deforestation by 2020 and bring it to zero in priority areas like Indonesia by 2015. A drive through the Kampar Peninsula reveals acre after acre of forest conversion from healthy rainforest to palm and acacia trees. There is no sign of animal life or biodiversity — just row after row of conversion. The destruction of the peatlands helps to make Indonesia the world’s 3rd largest emitter go greenhouse gases, just after the US and China.

In the interest of the environment and human rights, Greenpeace is calling upon world leaders and concerned citizens to contact Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono to ask him to stop these repressive actions by the Indonesian Police and Immigration authorities. The tactics currently being used by the authorities are likely to adversely impact upon the Indonesian government’s international reputation as well as the country’s reputation as a vibrant democracy.

It is not Greenpeace activists or journalists who should be the focus of the authorities, but the companies who are responsible for this forest destruction. We are working to make President Yudhoyono’s recent commitment to reduce Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions a reality and the journalists are telling that story.

You can take action at www.greenpeace.org.

Press release from Greenpeace.

“Indonesia is climate change’s ‘ground zero’”

Jakarta, 12 November 2009 – As Barack Obama arrives in Asia for his first visit to the region as President and while the United States continues to block progress ahead of the critical UN climate negotiations at Copenhagen next month, a 50-strong international team of Greenpeace activists issued him an urgent call to action from the heart of Indonesia’s threatened rainforests.

One group of activists unfurled a 20 x 30 meter banner in a freshly destroyed area of rainforest that read “Obama: you can stop this”, urging him to take strong leadership and work closely with other Heads of State to help avert a climate crisis by ending global deforestation, responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. (1)

Another group of activists locked themselves to three excavators, owned by Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Limited (APRIL – RGE), one of Indonesia’s biggest pulp and paper producers (2), to prevent it destroying the rainforest to make way for tree plantations (3), grown to make pulp and paper for international customers, including UPM Kymmene.

The action took place two days before Obama joins 20 other Heads of State in Singapore to discuss Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and just weeks before leaders must agree an historic deal to avert a climate crisis at the climate at December’s UN climate summit.

“Greenpeace is sending President Obama an urgent call to action from the frontline of climate and forest destruction. He has promised to take decisive action on climate change, yet with just weeks left before December’s critical UN climate summit, his administration is actively undermining and stalling global climate change negotiations,” (4) said Rolf Skar, Greenpeace USA Forest Campaigner. “It is vital that Obama and other world leaders attend the UN climate summit and agree to an ambitious, fair and effective deal that includes ending the destruction of the world’s rainforests.”

Greenpeace estimates that ending global deforestation requires industrialised countries to invest $42 billion US dollars (E30 billion) annually in forest protection. This is less than the US gave to individual banks during the financial crisis last year.

Today’s action took place on the Kampar Peninsula on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where Greenpeace has set up a ‘Climate Defenders’ Camp’. Rainforest and peatland destruction in Indonesia emits huge quantities of CO2 and has driven it to become the world’s third largest climate polluter after China and the US.(5) Activists at the camp are constructing dams across the canals – built by paper companies to prepare the land for plantations – in order to prevent them from draining and destroying the rainforest’s carbon-rich peat soil. The peatland in this area alone stores approximately 2 billion tonnes of carbon, which will be released to the atmosphere when it is destroyed. (6) The activists will continue to protect the rainforest and its peatland in coming weeks as the UN climate summit approaches.

“President Yudhoyono of Indonesia recently pledged to reduce emissions from deforestation and Greenpeace is here in the heart of the rainforest to help him turn his promise into action,” said Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Bustar Maitar. “Indonesia is climate change’s ‘ground zero’. Stopping forest destruction here and around the globe is not only one of the quickest and most cost effective ways to combat climate change but is essential in order to avert runway climate change in our lifetime.”