I Agree With This Big Polluter Lobbyist About Republican Climate Science Denial

When it comes to the Republican Party and global warming, I agree with the assessment of Thomas Pyle, head of the American Energy Alliance, a polluter front group. Here's what Pyle told Bloomberg's Zachary Mider about Jay Faison, a Republican who's spending $175 million of his own money trying to change the GOP's mind on climate science and clean energy:

“You can’t get to where he wants to be, in his lifetime, without a massive dose of good old-fashioned government intervention,” Pyle said. 

Republicans don't deny climate science because they don't know the facts or don't trust its scientific rigor. They deny it because all available solutions to global warming contradict their free-market dogma that big business alone can solve all of our problems (with a few government subsidies along the way).

The free market hasn't, and can't, solve the climate crisis any more than it solved our smog or dirty water problems - we needed the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to do that. But instead of altering their ideology, American conservatives just pretend global warming doesn't exist.

After years of trying to pretend the right messaging will trick Republicans into supporting clean energy and climate science, Faison is still beating his head against the wall of denial. Inexplicably, Faison says he may vote for Gary Johnson, who doesn't think we should bother trying to stop global warming.

Faison would be better off taking Jon Stewart's advice: "Let's stop pretending that concessions to the right will, at any point, sate the beast."

And as the Center for American Progress reports, many of Faison's donations have gone to Republicans with mixed - or flat-out poor - records on climate change. Imagine how much good Faison's $175 million might've done if instead he'd spent that money trying to defeat climate science deniers?

Even Koch-Funded Push Poll Shows Majority Support For Wind Tax Credits

The American Energy Alliance, a virtual subsidiary of Koch Industries, has a new energy push-poll out today. Not only are the questions rigged, the sample is skewed – while only 26% of US population is age 55 or older, 45% of poll respondents are 55 or older. Asked the most pressing issue facing America, this group’s #3 answer is “President Obama.” (???)

But one question contains a revealing result for the strength and bipartisan depth of support for government incentives for wind energy. Keep in mind that by this point in the poll, respondents have already been falsely primed to think tax credits mostly benefit foreign companies and don’t work:

9. Companies that generate electricity using wind power get a tax credit from the federal government which is paid for by taxpayers. In general, do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing?

51 Good thing
37 Bad thing
12 Don’t know/refused

The poll then comically keeps pushing respondents further and further against wind (well what if a turbine fell on your dog, would you support wind tax credits then?), but the poll's damage to the Koch's message is done. It's more proof that, as Joan Walsh wrote for Salon this week, Democrats should fear the Koch machine's money but not its message.

Big Oil: We'll Still Hate Obama Just As Much Even If He Builds Keystone XL

Those who support climate action but say it's not worth fighting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline like to imply that President Obama's approval of the pipeline would earn him political capital. But the head of one polluter front group would like to assure Washington that whether President Obama approves or rejects Keystone XL, Big Oil will still hate him just as much.

First, Dave Roberts summarizes the case against #noKXL activists:

Professional wanker Matt Nisbet says [fighting Keystone XL] “distracts” and “limits” Obama’s ability to broker a deal. (A deal on what? With whom? He doesn’t say.) Michael Levi says it makes 60 Senate votes for a price on carbon less likely. (Less likely than impossible?) I could cite a dozen more examples, people casually accusing Keystone activism of impeding or draining energy from other solutions.

What is this good-faith bipartisan progress just waiting to happen if only activists weren’t being unreasonable about Keystone? What do the VSPs have to offer? I don’t see it. I see self-pleasuring dreams of bipartisan Grand Bargains with no awareness of changed political circumstances.

As Jennifer Yachnin reports in today's E&E News (sub. req.), a top oil industry lobbyist says those who think approval of Keystone XL would mean Big Oil will look the other way on other carbon-cutting efforts are dead wrong:

But [American Energy Alliance and Institute for Energy Research President Thomas] Pyle added that approving the pipeline won't curb industry criticism of the Obama administration, including over what it sees as efforts to hold back oil and gas production on federal lands.

"I don't know that it buys him any good will," Pyle said. "There will be lots of statements of thank you ... but ultimately from a political perspective I don't know that it buys him any room to maneuver."

And ill will could linger over how much time it has taken the administration to make a final decision on the pipeline, Pyle added.

All the climate-disrupting carbon pollution and no thanks from his political enemies? All the more reason President Obama should do the right thing and reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Nothing Ruins Baseball Like Astroturf

Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen many awesome videos from polluter-funded Astroturf groups. But this may be the most awesomest of all.

First, there's your host, who seems as excited to be attending a baseball game as I would be attending a Jonas Brothers concert. Now the video:

Premise: What if you combined confusion about sports salary caps with confusion about how a global warming pollution cap-and-trade system works?

Result: Two minutes of people babbling so incoherently it seems like they'd just finished a kegstand (specifically the poor woman at 1:10)

OK, so a major problem leaps off the page with this video. It asks "What do baseball salary caps have in common with cap and trade?" But baseball doesn't have a salary cap. And most baseball fans want one. It would help up-and-coming teams compete with the established heavyweights.

The analogy actually does a much better job of explaining both why baseball doesn't have a cap and why America hasn't started the transition to clean energy through cap-and-trade. The organizations that already have the most money and power are blocking progress for the rest of us. Yes, I just compared the Yankees to Big Oil. That just happened.

To learn more about the polluter front group that produced the video, check out DailyFinance.com.