The Trump administration is having a big week when it comes to entrenching fossil fuel industry interests in federal policy.

Climate science denier and retired Princeton physicist Will Happer — described by an actual climate scientist as “unmoored” — is expected to head a new White House committee to determine the national security risks of climate change. Which, of course, federal defense and intelligence agencies have already concluded.

Meanwhile, federal officials backed away from negotiations with California over fuel efficiency standards, which, as Ben Jervey explains, sets the stage for the Trump administration to revoke the state’s special authority to set stricter clean car rules.

The oil industry and Koch network have been lobbying hard to roll back federal clean car standards, making this development another win for their campaign.

And speaking of fossil fuel industry campaigns, a DeSmog investigation has revealed that not only do the fossil fuel and tobacco industries use the same PR playbook, they donate to dozens of the same so-called “free-market think tanks” that promote these industries’ interests.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmogblog.com.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

By Graham Readfearn (4 min. read)

In 2016, retired Princeton physicist Professor Will Happer accepted an invitation from conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin to give a keynote at his conference to talk about the “positive effects of CO2.”

Griffin thinks the science behind global warming is a scam. He also thinks there is “no such thing” as the HIV virus and that some plane contrails are part of a political plot to spray the population with poisons.

In an interview at the conference, Happer repeated his well-oiled mantra that “CO2 will be good for the Earth” and how it was “pretty clear we are not going to see dangerous climate change.” Read more.

By Ben Jervey (4 min. read)

The Trump administration just took a big step closer to handing the Koch network one of it biggest wins yet under this presidency. Bloomberg has reported that there will be no deal between the Trump administration and California on fuel efficiency and emissions standards for cars and light vehicles.

This move sets the stage for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to attempt to revoke California’s special waiver under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to set its owns standards that are more stringent than federal standards. Read more.

By Mat Hope (11 min. read)

Fossil fuel companies have a long history of adopting public relations strategies straight from the tobacco industry’s playbook. But a new analysis shows the two industries’ relationship goes much deeper — right down to funding the same organisations to do their dirty work.

MIT Associate Professor David Hsu analyzed organisations in DeSmog’s disinformation database and the Guardian’s tobacco database and found 35 thinktanks based in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand that promote both the tobacco and fossil fuel industries’ interests. Read more.

By Justin Mikulka (11 min. read)

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently announced the city is scrapping plans for a multi-billion-dollar update to three natural gas power plants, instead choosing to invest in renewable energy and storage.

“This is the beginning of the end of natural gas in Los Angeles,” said Mayor Garcetti. “The climate crisis demands that we move more quickly to end dependence on fossil fuel, and that’s what today is all about.”

Last year America’s carbon emissions rose over 3 percent, despite coal plants closing and being replaced in part by natural gas, the much-touted “bridge fuel” and “cleaner” fossil fuel alternative. Read more.

By Julie Dermansky (6 min. read)

Sparks flew at a New Orleans City Council’s utility committee meeting on Valentine’s Day, compelling the committee to delay voting on a resolution that would scrap plans to rescind the permit for Entergy’s proposed $210 million natural gas power plant in exchange for a $5 million fine.

The contentious permit was awarded to Entergy, which provides power to the city, on March 18, 2018, but the city council’s third-party investigation of Entergy found the allegations that the company took part in an astroturf campaign to influence the vote for its proposed New Orleans East gas plant to be true. The investigation concluded that the company was responsible for hiring paid actors, who were wearing t-shirts supporting the plant, to fill council chambers and speak in support of the project. Read more.

By Sharon Kelly (12 min. read)

In September 2018, two prospective buyers announced they were dropping out of negotiations to purchase the Navajo Generating Station (NGS), the American West’s largest coal-fired power plant.

Avenue Capital Group and Middle River Power had sought to keep the aging coal plant in business, but “said they could not get anyone to commit to buying power from the plant, delaying the start of an environmental review,” the Associated Press reported. The plant, located in northern Arizona near the Utah border, is currently scheduled to shut down in December, after its current owners concluded in 2017 that its power was too costly to be competitive. Read more.

By Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch (4 min. read)

Trump is losing his rallying cry to save coal. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) voted on Thursday to retire two coal-fired power plants in the next few years despite a plea from the president to keep one of the plants open.

Earlier this week, the president posted an oddly specific tweet that urged the government-owned utility to save the 49-year-old Paradise 3 plant in Kentucky. It so happens that the facility burns coal supplied by Murray Energy Corporation, whose CEO is Robert Murray, is a major Trump donor. Read more.

By Joseph Aldy, Harvard Kennedy School (6 min. read)

Congressional Democrats have introduced a “Green New Deal” proposal that calls for a 10-year national mobilization to curb climate change by shifting the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels. Many progressives support this idea, while skeptics argue that a decade is not long enough to remake our nation’s energy system.

The closest analog to this effort occurred in 2009, when President Obama and Congress worked together to combat a severe economic recession by passing a massive economic stimulus plan. Among its many provisions, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided US$90 billion to promote clean energy. Read more.

The CO2 Coalition is a 501(c)(3) group formed from the now-defunct climate science-denying George C. Marshall Institute. Its stated purpose is promoting “the important contribution made by carbon dioxide and fossil fuels to our lives and the economy.” It was co-founded by Will Happer (who is poised to lead a White House probe of the national security risks of climate change) and former Exxon manager Roger Cohen. The coalition has received funding from the Koch family foundations and Mercer Family Foundation (the Mercers are conservative mega-donors).

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our research database.