Green Options » accce

Pacific Gas & Electric Rejects U.S.Chamber of Commerce Position on Climate Change

Tom Schueneman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:57:18 +0000

San Francisco based power utility Pacific Gas & Electric has announced it will leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protest over the organization’s “extreme” position on climate change.

Last month the Chamber of Commerce called for a “trial” on climate science as a means to thwart efforts in Congress to pass climate legislation, stymie the EPA’s endangerment finding regarding CO2 emissions, and needlessly continue to sow discord and confusion over the issue. It is an extremist position with which PG&E apparently wants no association. On a company blog post yesterday entitled Irreconcilable Differences, their position was made clear.

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Duke Energy Pulls Support for Dirty ‘Clean Coal’ Lobby

Timothy B. Hurst — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:41:16 +0000

Utility withdraws from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the troubled coal industry group

Duke Energy, the North Carolina-based electric utility announced on Wednesday it would be leaving the clean coal lobbying group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), over differences with the organization’s opposition to clean energy and climate legislation being considered by Congress.

Officials from Duke Energy said that “While some individual members of ACCCE are working to pass climate change legislation, we believe ACCCE is constrained by influential member companies who will not support passing climate change legislation in 2009 or 2010.”

Duke said that ACCCE’s position is not consistent with Duke Energy’s work to pass economy-wide and cost effective climate change legislation as soon as possible.

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Possible Coal Industry Link to Forged Letters

Tom Schueneman — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:42:45 +0000

Last week we reported on a series of forged letters sent to freshman Congressman Tom Perriello, purportedly from constituent groups, but in reality from an employee for “grassroots” lobbying firm Bonner & Associates. The letters urged Perriello to vote against the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

A total of 12 forged letters, sent to three House Democrats, have thus far been uncovered. As well, as Perriello, who voted for ACES, Kathy Dahlkemper and Chris Carney of Pennsylvania also received letters claiming authorship from community organizations. Dahlkemper and Carney voted against ACES.

The task now is unraveling the extent of the connection between the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the forged letters, and Bonner & Associates.

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News Flash: Yes, Coal Still Causes Global Warming [video]

Alan Smith — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:24:05 +0000

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

That’s probably what the memo said on Joe Lucas’ desk this morning when he got to work. Joe, the spokesman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) was on a CNN yesterday, saying he didn’t know if Coal was responsible for global warming. By now, you’ve probably seen the following short clip:

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Transcript:
Still the industry refuses to say its plants contribute to global warming.
[Question:] Can you just answer that yes or no? If you believe that burning coal causes global warming?
[Joe Lucas:] I don’t know, I’m not a scientist.

Clearly, Joe knows. He’s the spokesman for a Clean Coal advocacy group that admits as much, only they say that coal can clean up it’s act. Now, there’s a lot of evidence that Coal can’t, that from cradle to grave it will always be very dirty. Regardless, from a policy perspective, this sort of thing is just frustrating.

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Coal Lobby Co-Opts Obama Message in New Ad

Timothy B. Hurst — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:16:58 +0000

You don’t see commercials for biotech companies that do stem-cell research do it. You’re not seeing wind turbine manufacturers buying ad-time and doing it. So why is it that the “clean coal” industry group running primetime television commercials taking soundbites and snippets from what Pres. Obama has said about coal. Yes, during his campaign, Mr. Obama did say he would look for ways to burn coal cleanly, but the key here is that the coal lobby wants you to think that such technology already exists - and it most certainly does not.

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Dubious Coal Industry Opinion Poll Says Educated Rich Support Coal

Timothy B. Hurst — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:13:12 +0000

According to a recent poll, 72% of Americans approve of coal-fired electricity. Of course, the poll was commissioned by the coal industry who only surveyed 600 “opinion elites.”

In early October, pollsters commissioned by the coal industry group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) interviewed 600 individuals nationwide about their position on coal. But pollsters did not seek a random survey, rather they sought the preferences of so-called “opinion elites” nationwide.

Opinion elites are defined by pollsters as “adults with $80,000 or more in household income and a four-year college degree or more and a professional or managerial job title or a business owner and a high degree of involvement in politics and policy matters.”

But why an elite survey? The elite survey methodology is something that was experimented with by the social sciences in the middle part of the twentieth century and pretty much abandoned soon thereafter.

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Clean Coal Carolers Defeated By Environmentalists

Taylor Shelton — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:00:02 +0000

While the biggest news out of the energy and environmental world this week may have been a competition between the UN conference in Poznan, or perhaps the planned appointments of President-elect Obama’s environmental team or any other relevant news, the funniest news had a hands-down winner. That was, most certainly, the strange and sudden appearance of the ‘Clean Coal Carolers’ - an industry sponsored Flash animation of pieces of coal, dressed in warm hats and scarves, singing adaptations of traditional Christmas tunes. Only these songs were remixed to tout the brilliance and necessity of coal in American life.

On Friday, however, the Clean Coal Carolers ceased to exist. Thanks to an overwhelming voice of discontent with the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s (ACCCE) marketing ploy, the cute little lumps of coal were retired just about as fast as they popped up. The page once reserved for the carolers (http://www.americaspower.org/carolers) now redirects to a post on the ACCCE blog, lamenting that it was “time for them to head home for the holidays.” From the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC to the pages of environmental blogs across the net, the Clean Coal Carolers were ridiculed into nonexistence.

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