When we last left the Chamber of Commerce, Apple was leaving over their ‘frustrating’ global warming denialism.  NRDC’s Pete Altman has the latest on the incredible shrinking Chamber in a piece first published here.

John Broder has an illuminating story in today’s New York Times “Storm Over the Chamber” discussing the US Chamber of Commerce’s climate crisis and how Mr. Donohue’s style exacerbates it.

Tellingly, the story begins with an anecdote that suggests where the US Chamber gets its tin ear.

BACK in the 1990s when Thomas J. Donohue was president of the American Trucking Associations, a subordinate raised a question at a staff meeting.

Some of the association’s members, the aide said, wondered whether it was really necessary for the group’s president to fly on a private jet.

Mr. Donohue, a scrappy Irish-American born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, turned to his chief of staff and asked how many seats his jet had. “Well, eight, sir,” the aide said. “Tomorrow morning I want you to call and get a 12-seater,” Mr. Donohue shot back. The subject never came up again.

The US Chamber has demonstrated a similar lack of interest in exploring the concerns of its members when it comes to climate change.

Although it has at least made an effort – schizophrenic though it might be – to at least sound as though it isn’t as out of step as it really is. We’ve been keeping a close watch on the Chamber’s rhetoric, through our ad this week and our “WhoDoestheChamberRepresent.org” website and in recent blog posts (here and here.)

Alas, despite the Chamber’s change of tone, it has yet to change the tune. As the New York Times reported

Mr. Donohue would not agree to an interview for this article but provided written answers by e-mail to a number of questions about the chamber’s climate change position. . .

Mr. Donohue said that the chamber had a series of basic principles by which it would judge any legislation on climate change. It supports new nuclear plants, increased domestic oil and gas exploration, research on capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions, new efficiency measures and provisions to control cost increases associated with emissions reductions. It has not expressed support for any proposals to impose a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions. (emphasis added.)

Aside from wondering why Mr. Donohue suddenly got so shy about talking to a reporter, I couldn’t help but notice the last sentence, which gets to the heart of the questions we’ve been raising about the US Chamber position.

Does this mean that the US Chamber won’t support a mandatory cap?

Or is the US Chamber keeping the door open to the possibility it will at some point support a cap?

Or is the US Chamber just really never going to support serious climate policy, but is trying to avoid saying so?

While we wait for answers, in light of the fact the US Chamber has “not expressed support for any proposals to impose a mandatory cap on green house gas emissions,” how does the Chamber explain its agreement “that the objectives outlined in [Senator Kerry and Graham's NYT] editorial can serve as a solid, workable, commonsense foundation on which to craft a bill,” considering that the Senators stated their main purpose is “advocating aggressive reductions in our emissions of the carbon gases that cause climate change”?

UPDATE: Marc Gunther names Tom Donohue “America’s Worst CEO.” Find out why

From a sharp-eyed reader comes this ad for Humble Oil (which later merged with Standard to become, yes, Exxon). It may win the All Time Millenial Award for Maximal Irony. It’s from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine, available on Google Books (click for larger version):

Hmm, in December 2008, I blogged on an AP story about data presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union:

More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

[Note to AP -- "what scientists say is global warming???  I missed that uber-lame construction the first time around.]

And remember that over its lifetime,  “the burning of organic carbon warms the Earth about 100,000 times more from climate effects than it does through the release of chemical energy in combustion,” as climatologist Ken Caldeira and NYU’s Martin Hoffert calculate in an analysis first published on Climate Progress!  Yes, not all the cumulative warming from CO2 occurs right away nor does it all go into melting ice, but the point is we’re just at the very beginning of the mega-melting to come.

I’m filing this under greenwashing because I don’t have a category for unintentional anti-greenwashing — see “Shell’s ironic vision of carbon capture.”

Related Posts:

• Large Antarctic glacier thinning 4 times faster than it was 10 years ago: “Nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier.”
• World’s Glaciers Shrink for 18th Year
• De-Icer: USGS report details “recent dramatic shrinkage” in U.S. glaciers, matching global decline
• Stabilize at 350 ppm or risk ice-free planet, warn NASA, Yale, Sheffield, Versailles, Boston et al

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) — a front group of big utilities and coal companies — is no stranger to fraud. During the summer’s House debate on cap-and-trade legislation, lobbyists working on behalf of the coal group sent forged letters to members of Congress, and lied under oath about it. Now, ACCCE is trying to exploit Veterans Day by misrepresenting veterans groups in an email to supporters:

With Veterans Day around the corner, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the military personnel who are involved in ensuring our country is protected.

Energy security is one issue that has become increasingly important to our veterans. In fact, national veterans groups Votevets and Operation Free are urging the government to become more energy independent and less reliant on foreign oil.

We can do this by using the abundant domestic fuels we already have. With more than 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves, the United States has more coal than the Middle East has oil.

The letter implies that VoteVets and Operation Free support ACCCE and its dirty energy agenda, but the the two groups are actually vocal backers of clean energy legislation. VoteVets excoriated ACCCE for citing them in the email, writing that VoteVets “will never advocate the continued use of carbon based fuels” and that ACCCE is trying “to hijack America’s Veterans” in “an act of despicable hubris.”

Operation Free — a veterans group which is dedicated to fighting climate change — was also quick to condemn ACCCE. In a blog post, Operation Free wrote that the email “dishonors Veterans day” and is “insulting to all of the Veterans who are fighting to protect America’s national security by supporting clean, American power.”

Will ACCCE acknowledge their continued misrepresentation and apologize for using Veterans Day as a prop to support an agenda that many veterans oppose?

UPDATE: ACCCE has sent out this email (Wednesday afternoon):

Greetings!

Yesterday, we sent an email to you which some folks felt implied that the group Operation Free supports clean coal technology, an issue which they have not taken a position on. That was not our intention. In reading the original e-mail, I agree that the wording of that original message could have been more precise, and I apologize for any misunderstanding.

This event did give me a chance to talk to the folks at Operation Free. I owed them the call because it should be common courtesy to check with an organization before you mention them in an e-mail – and we didn’t do that. I also committed to making an attempt to remove any confusion from the previous e-mail, and I hope this does that. But moreover, it gave us an opportunity to understand more clearly that we share the common goal of promoting greater energy independence.

It is with profound respect, on this Veterans Day, that we thank all of those veterans who have served our nation with bravery and distinction. They have given their dedication and lives to a cause greater than themselves, and for that we are all grateful.

Thank you for your continued support.

Joe Lucas
Senior Vice President – Communications

Joe Lucas is that guy who said mountaintop removal solves ‘lack of flat space’ in Appalachia.

Related Posts:

• Alstom quit the scandal-ridden coal industry front group, ACCCE, joining Duke and Alcoa
• “Let’s Learn About Coal”: Industry front group distributes coloring book on the “advantages” of coal

Friends of Coal (FOC) is a front group created by the West Virginia Coal Association. Its mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens about the coal industry” and “provide a united voice” for the industry. To make dirty coal seem appealing, FOC has sponsored or initiated license plates, football games, basketball practices, plane jumps, fishing events, and scholarships.

FOC is now selling coal to children. ThinkProgress obtained the “Let’s Learn About Coal” coloring book, which asks children to unscramble statements about the “advantages” of coal, such as “Than coal other cheaper is fuels” (”Coal is cheaper than other fuels”). Kids also learn that coal is “important” and “provides jobs for lots of people!”

The FOC Ladies Auxiliary has been handing the coloring book out to children around West Virginia as part of a “Coal in the Classroom” campaign. Coal officials go into schools and give presentations about the importance of coal. “We’d really like this to be statewide, that it be mandatory in the schools that they learn about coal,” said FOC ladies auxiliary president Regina Fairchild in January. The ladies auxiliary is also recruiting members for its “junior” FOC group, open to “girls and boys ages 8 to 16.”

Additionally, FOC ladies auxiliary members have visited children in West Virginia hospitals to give them a “special present“: Mr. Coal, “a small, black Labrador stuffed puppy meant to bring a smile to kids’ faces during hospital stays.” (Coal pollution kills 24,000 Americans each year.)

Last year, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), another industry front group, also tried to make coal seem warm and fuzzy by creating the “coal carolers” — illustrated lumps of coal singing Christmas carols whose altered lyrics praised coal power. After widespread scorn, ACCCE took down the carolers. Find out more on what coal is really doing to Appalachia at Appalachian Voices.

This is a Think Progress repost.

Today, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing investigating fraudulent letters forged by Bonner & Associates on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) to attack the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454). As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has reported, ACCCE President and CEO Steve Miller lied under oath when he told the committee that his organization has never opposed clean energy legislation.

Later during the hearing, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) asked Miller about the purpose of ACCCE. Miller replied that in addition to grassroots lobbying (astroturfing) and state-based lobbying, his front group has only began federal lobbying in “April of 2008″ in its “16 year history”:

INSLEE: Your entire goal of your organization is to influence Congress. Is that right?

MILLER: We do work at the state level, we do regulatory matters, we do general education to the public. So, the federal, direct federal lobbying has only been part of our portfolio since April of 2008 with a 16 year history of the organization.

Miller’s claim is another example of the coal industry’s perjury under oath. In a six month period of 2007 alone, ACCCE, under its previous name of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, spent $2,660,000 lobbying the federal government. Senate disclosures show that the organization has spent millions more lobbying since 2001.

ACCCE was formed in 2008, according to its website, with the combined “assets and missions of the Center for Energy and Economic Development (CEED) and Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC).” So when Miller noted his 16 year history, he was referring to the lobbying efforts of the coal industry’s previous incarnations, ABEC and CEED.

Here is Brad Johnson’s post:

In the hearing investigating fraudulent letters forged on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) to attack the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), ACCCE chief Steve Miller told Congress his organization has never opposed the legislation.

The record shows otherwise.

ACCCE Called Waxman-Markey A ‘High-Risk Proposition.’ On June 18, a week before the House of Representatives voted on the legislation, ACCCE ran a full-page ad in Politico with the headline, “If a climate bill goes too far, too fast it could keep us from getting where we need to go.” The ad described the greenhouse gas pollution reductions in H.R. 2454 as a “high risk proposition.”

ACCCE Criticized Waxman-Markey For ‘Skyrocketing Energy Costs.’ On June 18, ACCCE published on its website the claim that Waxman-Markey could “have consumers paying higher costs for decades.” “In its current form, H.R. 2454 does not do enough to guarantee that consumers are protected against skyrocketing energy costs.”

ACCCE Said It ‘Cannot Support’ Waxman-Markey. Following the passage of the legislation in a 217-213 House vote on June 26, ACCCE issued a statement in opposition to the legislation: “ACCCE cannot support this bill, as it is written, because the legislation still does not adequately protect consumers and the domestic economy or ensure that the American people can continue to enjoy the benefits of affordable, reliable electricity, which has been so important to our nation.”

You can’t make this stuff up, as this Think Progress repost makes clear.

A group led by Alliance Coal CEO Joseph Craft recently proposed donating $7 million to the University of Kentucky for a new dorm for the men’s basketball team. The catch, however, is that the dorm would have to be named after Craft’s true love: coal. The proposed change sparked intense protests from local environmentalists and students. One professor said that as universities become “models for new energy sources,” putting “coal” on a prominent building could “make it difficult to attract top students and faculty members to the university.”

[JR:  Yes, coal industry will spend millions for a new dorm -- and yet Massey Energy refused to fund a new school so students can move away from coal processing plant!]

Yesterday afternoon, the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees voted 16-3 to approve the proposal for the new dorm, which will be named the “Wildcat Coal Lodge.” Significantly, two of the “no” votes were from faculty representative Ernie Yanarella and Student Government President Ryan Smith, who said he opposed the motion “as a voice for the student body.”

Students in the audience were reportedly not allowed to speak at the meeting. After the vote, people began chanting, “Move forward, not backward,” forcing the trustees to temporarily recess. More on the events at the meeting:

The vote set off shouts from about 30 protesters, mostly students, who attended the meeting.

“Big Coal is about to go down, and the university’s going down with them,” said Cor de Jong, who described himself as “a Lexingtonian and a basketball fan.”

A statement from students was passed out to board members moments before the vote. “They did not read our statement,” said Katie Goldey, a senior majoring in international studies. “They weren’t even given a chance to read it.”

Ironically, because the building costs more than $5 million, it is required to “meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.”

The coal industry has been taking a greater “public role” in the University of Kentucky lately. While Craft has already donated millions of dollars and has a basketball practice facility named in his honor, this is the first time that coal is being specifically recognized. Last weekend, however, there was a “students only” basketball practice “sponsored by Joe Craft and the Friends of Coal.”

The battle over America’s clean energy future is increasingly being fought on college campuses. As Greenwire reported recently, environmentalists are turning to student activists to get the word out about dirty coal, while American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — the coal industry’s biggest lobbying group — “spent the summer sending activists to 264 cities in eight states, where they attended community events and visited college campuses.” More here and here on efforts to get dirty coal off U.S. campuses.

This morning, activists from the Yes Men troupe claiming to represent the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced the organization was reversing its years of opposition to any climate bill before Congress, saying in jest that the “Kerry-Boxer Bill is a good start to a strong climate bill.” CNBC and the Fox Business Network cited the many companies who have quit the Chamber as a reason for the fictional about-face.

The Chamber of Commerce quickly tried to quash the reports that it had reversed its “Scopes monkey trial” stance. Chamber of Commerce official Eric Wohlschlegel broke into the press conference held by the Yes Men at the National Press Club, shouting, “This guy is a fake!” After a “mild shoving match at the podium,” Wohlschegel told reporters, “It is a very sad day.” U.S. Chamber of Commerce official Thomas J. Collamore decried “public relations hoaxes” and called for “law enforcement authorities to investigate this event”:

Public relations hoaxes undermine the genuine effort to find solutions on the challenge of climate change. These irresponsible tactics are a foolish distraction from the serious effort by our nation to reduce greenhouse gases.

Of course, it is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other right-wing corporate groups that have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars supporting “public relations hoaxes” to “undermine the genuine effort to find solutions on the challenge of climate change.” As PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee explained his company’s departure from the Chamber, “extreme rhetoric and obstructionist tactics seem to increasingly mark the Chamber’s stance on this issue.”

It’s doubtful that the Chamber — chaired by race-baiters and corrupt global warming deniers — will now be decrying clean coal carols, climate skeptics, fearmongering, and broken economic analyses as it spends over $100 million a year to lobby Congress.

Related Posts:

• Dirty coal group’s 14th forgery impersonated American veterans. Real vets support strong action on climate and clean energy — as does GOP Senator John Warner, former Armed Services Committee chair
• NPR takes on ‘clean coal’ astroturfers
• Leaked memo: Big Oil manufacturing ‘Energy Citizen’ rallies to oppose clean energy reform.
• Coal lobby hires top GOP voter-fraud company to run massive “grassroots” efforts to undermine climate and clean energy action

Last week, over 150 business leaders from major American companies came to the capital to tell Congress to “pass comprehensive climate change and energy policy legislation this year.” One of the corporate titans who participated in the We Can Lead effort was Jeffrey Hollender, the co-founder, executive chairman, and “chief inspired protagonist” of Seventh Generation, the leading producer of green household products. In an exclusive interview with the Wonk Room, Hollender had strong words for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, explaining that it made sense for prominent companies like Nike and Apple to cut ties to the chamber over its opposition to climate action:

I think the U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t act in in the best interest of business. They represent what was historically best for business. They represent exactly what’s the polar opposite of the future of business. The chamber is a voice of the energy industry, of the coal industry. As you’ve seen in the last couple of days, Nike gives up its position on the board, Apple resigns — businesses will increasingly abandon the chamber because they are just so wrong on this issue. Not that they’re not wrong on most issues, but they’re more wrong on this issue than they usually are.

Hollender further described membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a “reputational risk“:

These companies, like Nike and Apple, are taking a leadership position with their own energy efficiency initiatives. They don’t want to see a playing field where companies who abuse and pollute get benefits, and companies that are more efficient don’t. So, part of it is making sure the playing field is leveled. But I also think it’s undeniably important that the consumers of these companies would be embarrassed if they knew that Nike was sitting on the board of the chamber. I mean, I think it’s a reputational risk to be associated with the chamber, given their behavior.

Pausing in the Russell Senate building between meetings with senators from some of the 20 states in which Seventh Generation has manufacturing facilities, Hollender explained why capitalists like himself support the efforts of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to craft legislation with a cap-and-trade and energy efficiency provisions to cut global warming pollution and promote clean energy investment. Responding to critics who claim that advocates of a green economy are “socialists” who want to “kill capitalism,” he said, “the fact that we should be responsible for the effect we have on other people, anyone who tells you that’s anti-capitalist is crazy.”

Hollender concluded that Congress should pass clean energy and climate legislation immediately, because it’s “right for business, right for the economy, right for jobs, and good for the future of the country.”

The exodus of leading companies from the Chamber has been downsizing the denial-pushing industry group (which most certainly does not speak for the business community).  But Think Progress has the story (first posted here) of rapid weight loss that easily beats any of the winners of the reality show, “The Biggest Loser.”

As Mother Jones reported yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce consistently says that its membership is 3 million, even though it’s actually closer to 200,000. The reason for the artificial inflation is that the organization is counting the memberships of 2,800 state and local chambers around the country, even though many of these businesses have no relationship with the national organization. Some of these members are now protesting the Chamber’s numbers game:

– “They don’t represent me,” says Mark Jaffe, CEO of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, which is a dues-paying member of the national group. … Jaffe also scoffed at the US Chamber’s oft-repeated claim to “represent 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions.” … “They are playing games” with their numbers, Jaffe said. “They don’t have half the businesses in America as registered, dues-paying members.”

– Jaffe’s objections to the US Chamber’s policies were echoed by Rob Black, vice-president of public policy for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. “We take a fundamentally different approach than the US Chamber,” he said, adding that while the national Chamber opposes the Waxman-Markey climate bill, “we support a market-driven cap-and-trade system.”

A day after this public scrutiny began, the Chamber is quietly backing down. At a press conference this morning, Chamber officials “repeatedly cited a membership of 300,000. That’s a tenth as many members as the Chamber claimed a day earlier.”

This post is part of Blog Action Day.

Perhaps the only thing worse for kids than living downwind of a major coal plant is living downwind of coal itself.  As the BBC reported in February (see Chinese birth defects “up sharply”), “A senior family planning official in China has noted an alarming rise in the number of babies with birth defects….  The coal-mining heartland of Shanxi province had the biggest problem.”

Do coal companies have any responsibility to directly protect children from the harmful effects of air pollution?  Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) thinks so, but Massey Energy thinks otherwise, as Think Progress explains.

The Marsh Fork Elementary School in West Virginia sits just 300 feet from a Massey Energy coal silo and “downhill from a slurry impoundment.” Massey’s plans to build a second silo are facing “protests from environmentalists and some residents over the threat of flood and claims that children are exposed to coal dust, among other things,” especially because the company is refusing to build a new school, away from the toxic chemicals. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) is taking Massey to task for its “disregard for human life and safety“:

“Such arrogance suggests a blatant disregard for the impact of their mining practices on our communities, residents and particularly our children,” Byrd said in a statement. “These are children’s lives we are talking about.” [...]

“If Massey were not operating near Marsh Fork Elementary, we would not be debating what to do about moving these young students someplace safer,” Byrd said. “This is not the taxpayers’ burden to remedy. This is Massey Energy’s responsibility to address.“

Massey has criticized Byrd’s comments, noting that the school district never asked the company for funding. (Regardless, Massey has said it has no interest in donating any money because it already “pays millions of dollars in taxes each year.”)

For more on what Massey and the coal industry have really given West Virginia, go here.