Remember those ads Move On launched yesterday targeting the three Democratic Senators who cosponsored Senator Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act? Senator Landrieu is not pleased. Here is a statement from her spokesman Aaron Saunders:
“Senator Landrieu strongly supports the Clean Air Act, but she believes that using it to regulate greenhouse gases undermines the original intent of the law. Its primary focus is on reducing acid rain, air pollution, and toxic emissions, like mercury,” Saunders wrote in an e-mail. “Greenhouse gases are generally not toxic to human. In fact, humans emit the most common greenhouse gas — carbon dioxide — in every breath we exhale. The MoveOn.org ad explicitly deceives the American people about Sen. Landrieu’s intentions: she and her colleagues do not want to weaken the Clean Air Act. They want to protect public support for this effective law by ensuring it is not misapplied to greenhouse gases.”
MoveOn.org is launching a series of hard-hitting ads this week targeting the three Senate Democrats–Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.)–who’ve co-sponsored Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) resolution blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The television ads, which will amount to a six-figure buy and run in Arkansas, Louisiana and Nebraska, feature unsettling images of Americans smoking to highlight their exposure to air pollution. The shots include not only a Little League team puffing away, but a woman giving birth and a woman holding her baby–in which BOTH the mother and baby are holding cigarettes.
Last night over 10,000 MoveOn members participated in our first real-time dial test of the President’s State of the Union Speech. Below is a chart showing their reactions to President Obama’s speech, with the points of strongest approval and disapproval highlighted:
The hits keep coming for the embattled United States Chamber of Commerce. On Saturday, I wrote about the Chamber’s overwhelming hypocrisy on climate legislation:
In the last few weeks a diverse group of activist, NGO and labor campaigns have launched to escalate the pressure on the Chamber and its member companies. Here is a brief summary of current efforts:
The Natural Resources Defense Council has been leading the fight. In addition to Pete Altman’s prolific coverage of the story as it develops, they have launched a website — whodoesthechamberrepresent.org — to ask the question: “Who Does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Really Represent?”
Credo Mobile sent an email to their customers on Thursday with the subject line “Earth to Chamber of Commerce: You’re killing me”:
We can’t let this stand. Help us keep up the momentum and join us in asking every CEO serving on the Chamber of Commerce board to quit the Chamber and renounce its radical stance.
The science is clear. And the Chamber is feeling the heat.
Kevin Grandia applied pressure directly to Toyota two weeks ago, calling out the company’s inconsistency in a piece at DeSmogBlog:
If Toyota is genuinely committed to sustainability as they say they are, then they can can take their lead from Nike, Exelon and others and stop supporting the US Chamber and their attack on the Obama administration’s clean energy and climate change reforms. If they don’t leave the US Chamber, then we know where their motivations truly lie.
Move On followed up on Grandia’s pressure on Toyota, writing in an email blast to members on Friday:
If Toyota is as “green” as they claim, why are they supporting a massive effort to kill President Obama’s clean energy plans?
Toyota needs to know consumers won’t stand for this. Can you ask Toyota to quit the Chamber of Commerce? If you’ve owned a Toyota, be sure to mention it when you call.
If major companies like Toyota quit the Chamber, members of Congress will be less likely to listen to the Chamber’s lobbyists.
For years, the Chamber of Commerce has pursued a right-wing agenda out of step with the business interests of many of its members. This year, they’ve launched an all-out lobbying blitz to block all of Obama’s goals—from climate to health care to fixing the economy. If the Chamber has less influence in Washington, our country has a real chance for change.
Call on Toyota to quit the Chamber of Commerce:
Toyota
(212) 223-0303
The Service Employees International Union is also running a campaign against the Chamber, petitioning Senators to “Break Up with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce”:
There’s an exodus from the corporate front group over its extreme views. We must use this opportunity to further isolate the U.S. Chamber as an out-of-touch outfit that only serves the interest of a handful of greedy CEOs.
The U.S. Chamber can’t be taken seriously. Your senators need to know this – the corporate front group is in Congress every day, lobbying for its extremist positions. They need to be immediately discredited.
Sign the petition to the Senate now: don’t listen to the extremist U.S. Chamber of Commerce on any issue.
In addition to these newer campaigns, some small businesses have dealt with the U.S. Chamber’s extremism in more creative ways. The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce offers an alternative for small businesses that want to be part of a business association but don’t agree with the U.S. Chamber’s anti-consumer policies. They have been fighting against coal plants and for federal climate legislation for years, and they applauded Senator Graham just yesterday for his newfound urgency to reach a bipartisan deal on climate change.
Frank Knapp, President of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber told me on Monday that the U.S. Chamber does not represent the best interests of most small businesses. “I co-founded The S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce because I didn’t believe that small business interests were being represented, specifically in South Carolina, by any other chamber,” Knapp said. “It is clear that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is driven, as most organizations are, by their largest contributors. That traditionally leaves small business interests not being considered.” Business Week asked a similar question last week.
In any large group, a few people do most of the work—usually those who are most ideologically committed or who have a direct stake in a particular outcome. So decisions often end up reflecting not the wishes of the group as a whole but those of its most engaged members. In the case of climate-change legislation like cap-and-trade, many of the companies on the Chamber’s board of directors actually support it. But among the few that publicly oppose it are coal companies, which have a huge stake in stopping any carbon-pricing system. So it’s not surprising that the Chamber’s general approach is closer to Massey Energy’s than to Nike’s.
We assume that lobbies always recognize what’s best for their members. But they don’t, and, in the case of climate change, they may very well be missing what the companies that have resigned in protest have seen: global warming isn’t just bad for the planet; it’s bad for business.
As if the Chamber’s anti-science stance on climate legislation wasn’t enough, they are a key player in other fights against other smart, popular, pro-consumer reforms. Their playbook is exactly the same for every single campaign: spend millions of dollars on misleading television commercials, trying to create fear that reform will destroy the American economy.
Here are a few of the other campaigns they’ve been involved in this year:
The Chamber has lead the fight against the Employee Free Choice Act. They ran millions of dollars worth of misleading ads in home states of key Senators, opposing the legislation. Here is one such ad:
Labor unions responded forcefully — pointing out that the Chamber used the same misleading arguments against the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act 20 years ago — but the damage was done.
On health care they are playing the same disingenuous game they play on climate change. While claiming to support reform, they continue doing everything in their power to protect the status quo. Here is the Chamber’s latest misleading health care ad, thanking Blanche Lincoln for “standing up against a government-run health care plan”:
The Chamber has used the same cynical tactics to oppose financial regulatory reform and the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. President Obama on Friday specifically called out the Chamber for “maintaining the status quo” at the “expense of American consumers” (emphasis mine):
“But all this hasn’t stopped the big financial firms and their lobbyists from mobilizing against change. They’re doing what they always do – descending on Congress and using every bit of influence they have to maintain a status quo that has maximized their profits at the expense of American consumers,” he said. “And since they’re worried they may not be able to kill this agency, they’re trying their hardest to weaken it – by asking for exemptions from this agency’s rules and enforcement; by fighting to keep open every gap and loophole they can find. And they’re very good at this, because that’s how business has been done in Washington for a very long time. In fact, over the last ten years, the Chamber of Commerce alone spent nearly half a billion dollars on lobbying – half a billion dollars.“
So while the bulk of media attention these past few weeks has focused on the Chamber’s stance on climate legislation, there should be no doubt that the group’s efforts are getting in the way of other key elements of the progressive agenda as well.
As Move On notes in their email, the Chamber’s ability to influence members of Congress decreases with each high-profile member company that departs. But the Chamber also relies on annual dues from their nearly 3 million member organizations to finance their misleading political campaigns. Small and large businesses nationwide should take a long hard look at the Chamber’s campaigns and track record, and those who don’t feel represented should end their memberships immediately. Those companies on the Chamber’s board of directors should be subject to additional pressure, since they contribute so heavily to the Chamber’s coffers for the pleasure.
Put another way, companies should only be members of the Chamber of Commerce if they support hyper-conservative anti-regulatory policies across the board, and aren’t afraid to show it. I suspect that hundreds of forward-thinking companies will jump ship in the next several months before their reputations are tarnished by association.
Four independent groups are launching more than $1 million in attack ads Tuesday targeting five House Republicans who voted against energy legislation in June, spokespeople for the groups said.
The ads from the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, MoveOn and Americans United for Change, will target Reps. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), Denny Rehberg (R- Mont.), Roy Blunt (R- Mo.) and two Virginia Republicans, Frank Wolf and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor.
The ad casts the members as siding with “big oil and energy interests” and against “the jobs we really need” because they voted against the legislation that would set up a system of trading carbon permits known as “cap-and-trade” and impose a series of other measures aimed at reducing emissions.
A burst of developments Monday considerably raised the profile of the latest attempt by polluting industries to thwart environmental legislation. This story has been moving quickly, so here is a quick timeline of how things have unfolded over the past few days. If I missed anything major, please let me know:
Friday
The Charlottesville Daily Progress reported on a series of forged letters from community organizations, fraudulently sent by lobbyists to Congressman Tom Perriello of Virginia. The letters, written in opposition to the American Clean Energy and Security Act, failed to dissuade Congressman Perriello, who voted for the legislation.
Representative Ed Markey immediately announced his plans to launch an investigation, calling the letters an “appalling abuse.”
Over the weekend, more traditional outlets took notice, with stories from NYT, WaPO, WSJ, Politico and AP.
Monday
Sierra Club announced a major beltway ad buy, and fired off a letter to Attorney General Holder urging investigations.
Move On launched a position asking the DOJ to conduct “an investigation into whether the firm, Bonner & Associates, committed fraud, and how often they’ve done this.”
Credo Mobile sent an email to their list petitioning A.G. Holder to “investigate and prosecute” dirty coal’s fraudulent tactics.”
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a front group for the coal industry, was exposed as the client Bonner and Associates sent the letters for.
Due to reported misconduct by a Bonner and Associates employee (who the firm states was subsequently fired), it appears that a total of twelve falsified letters were sent by that firm to the offices of Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, Congressman Christopher Carney and Congressman Tom Perriello.
Six forged letters, all sent to Congressman Perriello, had been acknowledged previously. While Congressman Perriello remained unswayed by the letters, and voted in support of the legislation, Reps. Dahlkemper and Carney both did not. This raises the very real possibility that Members of Congress were influenced by fraudulent letters paid for by the coal industry, and voted against environmental regulation as a result of this influence. Given the razor thin margin and last-minute negotiations surrounding the House vote, this was a clear attempt by both Bonner and Associates and ACCCE to subvert the Democratic process. Now, we can’t say for with 100% certainty that fraudulent letters persuaded any particular Member of Congress to oppose the legislation, but that was certainly the intent. To make matters worse, the background document includes ACCCE’s less-than-inspiring “belief” that the fraudulent letters were limited to the three congressional districts mentioned previously:
Due to assurances that Bonner and Associates provided to Hawthorn, and Hawthorn subsequently communicated to ACCCE, we believe this matter to be limited to the three congressional districts mentioned above. However, we are in the process of verifying all contacts made by Bonner and Associates with respect to this project.
The folks who lied their way into this mess are not going to get to the bottom of it on their own. Chairman Markey has generously given Mr. Bonner nine days to respond to his questions. The Department of Justice should move forward in the meantime with separate investigations.
