Editor’s note: On April 28, at the Warwick Public Library, the Civic Alliance for a Cooler Rhode Island hosted a climate leadership workshop for Rhode Island candidates running or planning to run for state and local office and for their campaign staff. Speakers included Kat Burnham of People’s Power & Light; Cristina Cabrera of the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island; Rachel Calabro from the Rhode Island Department of Health; John Flaherty from Grow Smart Rhode Island; and Frank Carini, co-founder of ecoRI News.
By
FRANK CARINI, ecoRI
News editor
Rhode Island has a money problem. Many
actually, but let’s focus on the flow of largely concealed out-of-state
fossil-fuel money that is used to discredit climate science and thwart climate
legislation.
Organizations that scream freedom and
yell about protecting the Constitution, such as the Rhode Island
Center for Freedom and Prosperity, are typically funded by the
industrialist Koch brothers or other big-moneyed special interests.
ProPublica has a webpage for the
Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s 990s. Good luck finding anything on the
center’s website about how the organization is funded.
SourceWatch outlines
the Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s strong ties to Koch-funded
organizations such as the State Policy Network — a group that
touts the free market as the panacea to all ills and rails against government
regulation — and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),
a corporate bill mill.
These groups and their industry-funded staffs all have one thing in common: they ignore science, and polls that show strong support for climate mitigation, to undermine government interventions and muddy the waters when it comes to climate change and environmental protections. All too often they lie or misrepresent facts.
As we approach the midterm elections,
candidates for all levels of elected government should know they might be
attacked for supporting climate action or energy bills the industry doesn’t
like.
Respond by pointing to the direct links between the attackers and the self-interested people and industries from outside the state they work for. Ask the attackers to provide data, or have them disclose the nonpartisan studies and research that back their bought claims.
Respond by pointing to the direct links between the attackers and the self-interested people and industries from outside the state they work for. Ask the attackers to provide data, or have them disclose the nonpartisan studies and research that back their bought claims.
Fossil-fuel lobbyists are omnipresent at
the Statehouse; they regularly meet with state agencies, such as the Office of
Energy Resources; they routinely file testimony opposing local legislation on
climate and energy.
In an ongoing study of 49 such bills by
professor Timmons Roberts’ Climate & Development Lab at
Brown University, several groups and corporations showed up repeatedly to
testify against energy and climate legislation. Among those frequent voices
were and remain:
National Grid: a multinational British
corporation that made $4.2 billion in profit last year.
Invenergy: a private Chicago-based energy
company. Top officials from the company, which has proposed building a
natural-gas/diesel power plant in the woods of Burrillville, have donated to
Gov. Gina Raimondo, who expressed support for the fossil-fuel project early and
often.
American Petroleum Institute: the
largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural-gas industry. Based in
Washington, D.C., it represents about 400 corporations. It has an annual budget
of some $240 million. Institute representatives testify at the Statehouse
regularly, from arguing against a carbon tax to attacking a statewide ban on
plastic bags.
There are also groups with
local-sounding names that regularly testify against any bill that puts
fossil-fuel profits at risk — the Oil and Heat Institute of Rhode Island, the
aforementioned Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, and the Rhode
Islanders for Affordable Energy, to name a few. They are tentacles of a
national group and/or receive some or much of their funding from corporate
interests.
For example, the creation of the Rhode Islanders for Affordable Energy last
year by an alliance of building and trades unions and business advocacy groups
was backed by Invenergy.
The organization says it was created to
protect Rhode Islanders from higher energy costs. The organization, its
supporters and its funder claim the proposed Clear River Energy Center will do
just that. They fail to mention that Invenergy, which went to court looking to
have ratepayers pay millions for the
project’s interconnection costs, is a private company looking to
maximize its profits. Rhode Islanders for Affordable Energy's claims and
corporate reality don’t match.
In fact, this fossil-fuel tactic of
harping on high energy costs requires information to be presented out of
context. It plays to people’s fears. This well-worn con, used every time
special interests argue against, say, renewable-energy incentives or grid upgrades,
always ignores public health and environmental costs.
Study after study has shown, however,
that the continued burning of fossil fuels has and will disproportionately
impact the elderly and poor. Fossil fuels also degrade the environment. There’s
no “clean coal.” Natural gas is not a “bridge fuel.” They’re both just
marketing strategies paid for by fossil-fuel money.
The industry’s well-paid local clan,
however, continues to claim, without evidence, that Rhode Island’s climate
initiatives will hurt the economy, increase cost for ratepayers and slow job
creation. They argue that such initiatives are just hidden taxes, or some
violation of the free market or the Constitution that would make the Founding
Fathers throw up in their mouths.
None of it is true. They’re lies to
protect out-of-state industries and billionaires.
Rhode Island spends some $3.5 billion
annually on fossil fuels we don’t produce. That’s why fossil-fuel money is
spilled all over Rhode Island and used to influence policy that protects the
industry.
Fossil-fuel money corrupts local politics by pressuring politicians and policymakers to address private interests, with dangerous consequences. We can’t have an honest and open discussion about how to mitigate the very-real impacts of climate change if the Statehouse and state agencies are being manipulated with fossil-fuel money.
Those screaming the loudest against
climate action and renewable-energy bills need to be asked who is funding their
anger. Candidates should demand to know.