Astroturfing...not just for health care!

Commentary from The San Francisco Chronicle's "Thin Green Line" blog on a story in the New York Times on astroturfing in the energy industry.

After bruising revelations that companies, notably ExxonMobil, had funded contrarian "science" on climate change, the industry claimed to get religion but actually only reduced its funding.

Then, as it appeared inevitable that carbon regulations would happen eventually, a group of corporations, including a handful of energy giants, formed the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, asking for clear regulation soon. (The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.)

Yet, several of the companies in this partnership have hired a PR firm to coordinate an astroturf (or faux grassroots) campaign to protest the Waxman-Markey bill that, on paper, they support.

Greenpeace recently obtained a memo coordinating an effort, funded by the American Petroleum Institute, for energy companies to bus their employees to political events disguised as everyday Americans opposed to "Waxman-Markey-like" legislation (a generalization that I find somehow creepy). It appears that USCAP was at least aware of the campaign, if not an active participant.

Other bait-and-switch efforts include the coal lobby's recent forged letters of opposition to the bill, sent by yet another PR firm, to members of Congress, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's continued efforts to deny climate change, although most of its (paying) members acknowledge it and many support carbon regulation.

What is wrong with out political system that these bought-and-paid-for lies are allowed to dominate our public discourse, much like they have on health care? Well, one clear problem is that lobbying disclosure requirements are not expansive enough to include astroturf campaigns, so a company can spend $10 officially lobbying for a politically popular position—most Americans support climate regulations—and spend $10,000 working against that position in ways they don't have to disclose.

According to Greenpeace, $82 million have been spent by the fossil fuels industry openly opposing climate regulation.