Posted by on 07/03/2009 at 10:07AM
From the Wonk Room.
The top public relations group for the coal industry is looking to shape
public attitudes online, with a $20 million media budget for
Internet-based advertising alone. The American Coalition for Clean Coal
Electricity
(ACCCE)
is on the search for a “Vice President, Paid and Digital Media” to
increase the public’s “appreciation for the use of coal”:
The Vice President, Paid and Digital Media is responsible for
implementing proactive digital media and traditional media placement
strategies as a component of an integrated national communication
program designed to 1) support coal-based electricity advocacy
initiatives and 2) increase the public’s awareness of and
appreciation for the use of coal to generate electricity.
This position, according to recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International,
will oversee the public relations and media placement firms under
contract and manage an annual media budget in excess of $20 million:
more than $3 million for “digital media programs” (like the “Clean Coal
Carolers”
and a “Blogger
Brigade“)
and greater than $17 million for “media placement.”
ACCCE’s planned digital efforts are part of a
comprehensive, national public relations
campaign.
In 2008, ACCCE spent over $45
million
on its messaging, including $10.5 million to
lobby
Congress. The PR firm Hawthorn Group has promoted its “grassroots
campaign”
for ACCCE involving “sending ‘clean coal’
branded teams to hundreds of presidential candidate events” and “giving
away free t-shirts and hats emblazoned with our branding: Clean Coal.”
The Wonk Room received the job
description
when Korn/Ferry approached Center for American Progress Action Fund’s
Associate Director for Online Advocacy, Alan Rosenblatt, about the job.
“While some may work just for money,” Rosenblatt said, “progressives
work for values. Which might explain why this headhunter was naive
enough to recruit me despite the fact I work for an organization that
opposes her client.”
Download the Korn/Ferry job description for
ACCCE’s Vice President of Paid Digital Media
here.
Posted by on 26/02/2009 at 10:30AM
From the Wonk Room.
The Center for Public Integrity has found that “more than 770
companies
and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence
federal policy on climate change in the past year,” estimating total
expenditures of $90 million. Their comprehensive investigation of
climate
lobbying
discovered that nearly 2,000 of the lobbyists represent corporate
interests.
CPI found that the top climate lobbying shop
was the American Coalition for Clean Coal
Electricity (ACCCE), a
coal-industry front group that spent $10.5 million lobbying Congress:
No group exemplifies the sophistication of the current debate more
than the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — a new
lobbying organization unveiled just weeks before the vote last June on
the Warner-Lieberman bill. Representing 48 mining firms, coal-hauling
railroads and coal-burning power companies, ACCCE spent $10.5
million lobbying Capitol Hill on climate in 2008 — more than any
other organization solely dedicated to the issue. In addition to the
group’s president, Steven Miller, a one-time aide to former Democratic
Kentucky Gov. Brereton Jones, and vice president Joe Lucas, who was an
aide to former Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary,
ACCCE has at least 15 outside lobbyists,
including former White House Counsel Quinn. The big effort is not
surprising, since electricity is the largest single source of U.S.
greenhouse gas emissions, and the most carbon-intensive fuel, coal,
provides half the nation’s power. But
ACCCE’s position is that it supports a
mandatory federal program to curb the emissions its own members
produce—as long as the policy meets ACCCE’s
set of principles for keeping electricity affordable, domestically
produced, and reliable. And that means encouraging, in ACCCE’s
words, “robust utilization of coal.”
Check out the “The Climate Change
Lobby”
site, including a searchable database of lobbyists and a sampling of
top
players.
Posted by on 13/02/2009 at 10:50PM
From the Wonk Room.
The coal-industry public relations group, American Coalition for Clean
Coal Electricity (ACCCE), is celebrating the Senate’s insertion of
billions of dollars of coal R&D funds in the recovery plan in an email
to supporters. The Senate plan added $2.2 billion to the House’s
allocation of $2.4 billion for the development of “carbon capture and
sequestration technologies.” ACCCE heralded
the ”$4.6 billion in clean coal technology funding” in the message,
claiming the “funding is important because”:
- It contributes to energy independence, allowing us to use coal that
is right here in America
- It stimulates the economy and could create almost 7 million
job-years of employment and over $1 trillion in sales
- It will help fight climate change and aid other environmental goals
by promoting technologies to reduce carbon dioxide and major air
pollutants
It is not the case that $4.6 billion for coal technology could “create
almost 7 million job-years of employment and over $1 trillion in sales.”
The “7 million job-years” figure comes from “Employment and Other
Economic Benefits from Advanced Coal Electric Generation with Carbon
Capture and
Storage,”
a BBC Research report commissioned by
ACCCE. The report says that the construction
of 100 gigawatts of advanced coal plants - about 200 plants over a
fifteen-year span - would generate that much job activity. The
construction expenditures for a single plant with
CCS is estimated at “approximately $2.0 to
$2.1 billion.” So the $4.6 billion in the Senate plan is enough for the
construction of only two plants and about 6,000 construction and
manufacturing jobs. Two hundred plants would cost a $393 billion. The
ACCCE email “is a bit confused,” Doug Jeavons,
the author of the BBC report tells the Wonk
Room:
The nearly 7 million job-years estimate is associated with full
scale development of about 100 gigawatts of advanced coal CCS
capacity, not just the proposed $4.6 billion in the stimulus plan.
Furthermore, the technology to build such plants does not yet exist. As
NV Energy announced when they indefinitely postponed the construction
of a coal-fired
plant in
Ely, Nevada:
The company will not move forward with construction of the coal plant
until the technologies that will capture and store greenhouse gasses
are commercially feasible, which is not likely before the end of the
next decade.
To make CCS technology commercially viable,
the Center for American Progress recommends, there should be a federal
greenhouse emissions performance
standard
put in place for new plants, and a cap-and-trade system to make
polluters
pay
for their emissions.
Posted by Brad Johnson on 22/08/2008 at 01:41PM
The Politico’s Jeanne Cummings
reports
that the American Coalition for Clean Coal
Electricity
is spending $2 million at the Democratic National Convention on
billboards and street teams to promote the coal industry:
The Democrats are mighty proud of the “greening” of their convention.
Recycling will be celebrated, as will bicycling and a whole host of
other environmentally sound practices.
Amid the glow from all that global warming warfare enters the American
Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Yep, those fellows have got
guts.
The coal coalition, a nemesis to many environmentalists, plans to
spend $2 million on advertising in and around the Denver convention
venues, promoting the virtues of clean coal.
It will also be doing “experiential advertising,” meaning the group
will put people on the streets to actually talk to conventioneers
about the role coal could play in future energy policy.
The street teams will also be handing out city maps with blurbs
inserted about the importance of the coal-based electricity industry
and ongoing research into capturing and storing carbon emissions from
those plants.
“We started this conversation with policymakers and the American
public in 2000,” said Joe Lucas, the coalition’s vice president of
communications. “We’ve significantly turned up the volume on that
conversation in the last year.”
And the coalition figured, what better place to go to continue that
conversation than at the conventions?
In billboards and other ads, the coalition will argue that the
coal-based electricity industry can help keep jobs at home, reduce
costs for consumers and — with more research — find its own tidy spot
in an environmentally cleaner energy future.
“Clean coal means the next president won’t have to choose between the
economy and the environment,” concluded Lucas, adding that both Barack
Obama and John McCain already see coal in the nation’s future energy
industry.
This will be the coalition’s first appearance at the two political
conventions. But Denver is clearly the group’s best shot at a
breakthrough moment.
Posted by Brad Johnson on 21/08/2008 at 07:44AM
A report from the Public Campaign Action Fund on 2008 spending by oil
and coal industries
finds that they are on track to spend about one billion dollars this
year on lobbying, political contributions, and advertising. The full
report
amasses the following expenditures:
Amounts in millions |
Coal/Electric Utilities |
Oil/Gas |
Total |
Political Contributions |
$16.5 |
$20.9 |
$37.4 |
Lobbying Expenditures |
73.7 |
55.3 |
129.0 |
Paid Media |
7.4 |
201.2 |
208.6 |
Other Political Spending |
40.0 |
12.2 |
52.2 |
Total |
$137.6 |
$289.6 |
$427.2 |
Lobbying expenditures and political contributions come from Center for
Responsive Politics data compiled from
public disclosures. Paid media figures are from
TNS Media Intelligence, the industry standard
for tracking media spending.
The “other political spending” comes from the coal industry group
Americans for Balanced Energy
Choices
/ American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ABEC/ACCCE) and from
Newt Gingrich’s 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the
Future (ASWF).