Roy Blunt often goes along to get along when it comes to lots of the crazy shenanigans that have characterized the Grand Old Party in recent years. Nevertheless, when he can do so without exciting the pitchfork brigade, he occasionally exhibits a functioning intellect. Blunt never forgets whose ax he’s in the Senate to grind and it has nothing to do with Tea Party bromides and libertarian fantasies. No, our boy is in Washington to do the best that he can for Montsanto, AT&T, Big Oil, King Coal, etc. Nevertheless, he’s not above making use of his colleagues’ ideological excesses when the occasion presents itself, as now seems to be the case with the silly conservative controversy over reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.

The Export-Import Bank. I know, very dry stuff. Nevertheless, Paul Waldman of the Washington Post describes the current conservative furor over the extension of its charter as “the heart of the battle to define conservatism, probably the defining ideological struggle of our time.” He summarizes the issues:

Almost out of nowhere, conservatives are suddenly campaigning against the Ex-Im Bank, which has to be reauthorized or its charter will expire in the fall and it will go out of business. If you want to get up to speed, here’s an explainer on the bank, but the quickie version is that the bank arranges loans to support U.S. exports, often by helping foreign companies buy U.S. goods. It doesn’t cost the taxpayer anything (the bank operates at a profit), but its critics say that it favors companies with political power.

Whether the Ex-Im Bank is good for the economy is a complicated question. But the bank’s effect on the economy isn’t what people are arguing about. Tea partyish conservatives have an ideological objection to the bank, not a practical one. They say it’s “crony capitalism,” so they want to kill it. While liberals have made similar arguments, today the White House wants it reauthorized, as do many congressional Democrats. The Republican leadership is caught in the middle, between its loyalty to business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, which want to see the bank reauthorized, and tea partyers who have discovered in this issue a way to prove their independence from big business and their devotion to pure free markets. …

So the Export-Import Bank helps businesses and is basically harmless otherwise, costing taxpayers nothing. Why are folks who routinely defend oil company, agricultural and defense industry subsidies so worked up? As Waldman posits, the Tea Partiers:

… like to think of themselves as rebels fighting against the go-along-get-along culture of Washington, so an issue like this is a perfect way for them to show their independence and ideological purity. By opposing crony capitalism, they can say their commitment to free markets is so fervent that they don’t mind bucking big business, which tends to prefer markets whose rules are written to benefit them rather than markets that are truly free. And that most of them probably never heard of the Ex-Im Bank until a month ago makes it easier to oppose.  

Since it’s a relatively insignificant agency, Waldman notes, they can act like free-market heroes without stepping on any really big corporate toes.

So where does Roy Blunt get into the picture? Virginia’s Senator Joe Manchin opened a door that is very near and dear to our Roy, one that leads to the wish-lists of Missouri coal giant, Peabody Energy:

The Hill reported on Saturday that a proposal from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would reauthorize the bank while reversing bank policies that prevent it from financing power plants that don’t adopt greener technologies.

The federally-run bank, which finances and guarantees some exports of U.S. goods, adopted the policies last year as part of President Barack Obama’s larger efforts to address climate change, The Hill reported.

The irony of it all. Some fools run around making noises abut “crony-capitalism,” which noises are then exploited by coal-compromised politicians like Manchin and corporatist bagmen like Blunt to do the capitalist cronies a great big solid.

And what about the fact that undoing the Export-Import Bank provisions will contribute to more carbon emissions from overseas sources? The ironies only compound. Blunt is on the record with the view that we have to be careful about enacting energy policies that could “drive jobs overseas to countries where they don’t care as much about what comes out of their smokestacks as we do.”  In fact, it’s the growing foreign, specifically Chinese and Indian carbon emission problem that folks like Blunt usually agonize about when asked why they can’t support carbon restrictions here – it just isn’t fair for the U.S. to take the big economic hit all by its lonesome they say, anyway our unilateral efforts “do little to address the global problem of carbon pollution” – even though we’re one of the biggest polluters.  Of course when a big time local campaign contributor wants to take their dirty fuel overseas unhindered, the same folks are Roy Blunt seems eager to help.

For those of you who don’t know what the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is, the folks at The Nation succinctly summarize the group’s activities:

ALEC practices stealth advocacy; it writes bills for legislators, refines that legislation through task forces where its business members wield veto power, then quietly shepherds the finished “model” bills to passage. Their mission accomplished, ALEC’s business members reward the group with massive contributions – nearly $400 million from 2000-10, according to Common Cause.

ALEC is one of the tools developed by corporate interests in order to purchase the government corporations want – which rarely seems to coincide with what’s good for the rest of us. ALEC wants to  bust unions, repeal minimum wages, privatize public lands and public services, cut corporate taxes and corporate accountability – you get the picture.

Progress Missouri has reported extensively on ALEC’s influence in Missouri and has issued a comprehensive report identifying ALEC sponsored legislation that has been introduced in Jefferson City, as well as the names of state lawmakers who are known to be associated with ALEC. The authors caution us, though, that:

Identifying the list of Missouri legislators who are part of ALEC is a difficult task, because ALEC operates largely in secret. Even though they claim to be a legislative membership organization, there is no full list of members made public by the organization.

It’s not surprising that ALEC and its legislator protégés prefer to operate in the dark. In fact, after organizations like Progress Missouri and Common Cause, among others, started shining a light on ALEC, several of its corporate partners began to pull their support (find a list here), and some lawmakers have dropped their membership – including Missouri Rep. Mike Colona. ALEC itself has disbanded a few of its more controversial “non-economic” task forces.

But there are still numerous corporations willing to pony up outsize gobs of cash so that ALEC can buy itself some government, and the organization still has lots of active task forces. Common Cause has made public a complete list of ALEC contributors and their task force involvement. Needless to say, it makes for interesting reading – I’m going to think twice before I buy from Amazon again.  

In case you’re interested, three of the corporations listed are headquartered here in Missouri. The fact that Peabody Energy is on the list isn’t much of a surprise; nor did the presence of Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. shock me too much. But I was a bit annoyed to find that my own Internet provider, Charter Communications, was paying to play with with such lowlifes.

As a matter of fact, I’m so disturbed that I’m going to let Charter know about it. As I’ve noted above, pressure does work. Peabody Energy is a lost cause probably, but here is contact information along with the contact page for Anheuser Busch.

Common Cause is also putting together a petition to the IRS asking that the ALEC’s tax status be investigated. Losing its tax-exempt status could really put a crimp in its activities. You can sign the petition here. Another petition asking corporations to withdraw from ALEC can be signed here.

 

Tomorrow (Nov. 8 10) Repower America will give Peabody Energy an award – their state level Snake Oil Award for Public Deception. Peabody’s award will be presented at 12 p.m. at a red carpet event just outside 701 Market St., which, in case you don’t recognize the address, is Peabody Energy’s headquarters. You will be more than welcome to attend and join in what promises to be lively festivities.

To win the Missouri award, Peabody had to beat out such big-time polluters as Ameren. How did Peabody do it?  

Remember who won last Tuesday’s Senate election? Let me remind you – our new senator will be Roy Blunt, the same guy who in 2009 declared that “there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.” In other words, our new GOP Senator pits his knowledge of climate science against an overwhelming scientific consensus and is willing to bet our future on his conclusions.

Why is Blunt so cavalier about the science of climate change, not to mention the opportunities posed by green industry? It might have something to do with all the money from big oil and coal that he has received over the years. Among these contributors, Peabody Coal employees and political PACs enriched Blunt’s recent Senate campaign to the tune of $37,000 dollars, comprising one of his largest blocs of industry donations.

Get the picture yet? Peabody is a major source of campaign funds for Missouri and other coal state politicians; company lobbyists and front groups spent over $8.4 million to influence congress in 2008 alone. Repower America is just trying to give credit where credit is due:

2010 has been quite the year for environmental disasters caused by big oil companies and professional polluters. The depths to which the fossil fuel companies and their front groups have sunk this past year are unprecedented. Corporate polluters have hijacked our democracy, devastated our environment, denied the science of climate change and made record profits doing so. Repower America wants to expose the polluters for exactly what they are: Snake Oil Salesmen.

Thanks in part to energy interests like Peabody, we’re stuck for the next few years with the climate deniers, the Roy Blunts of the political world, deciding our energy policy and the result will not be pretty. Not only will there likely be no meaningful energy legislation during the next couple of years, plans are already underway for a full court press to neuter the EPA and the Clean Air Act. The honchos at Peabody Oil can rest easy in the knowledge that their dollars have been well-spent.

As for the national award, now that it is clear what the big oil and coal companies have to do to win the award – devastate the environment, poison the climate debate, and purchase politicians so that they can do so with impunity – it’s clear that Koch Industries is a natural as the national level winner, easily beating out such giants as Massey Energy and BP. Not only does Koch Industries get the big prize, the folks at Repower America have gifted them with their own commemorative Website, which catalogs the “lies and environmental offenses by Koch Industries and its owners, the brothers Charles and David Koch.” Visit the site, poke around and pick up some new information about the cynical efforts of the Koch boys to buy our government so that you can show the appropriate level of appreciation when you attend the award ceremony tomorrow.

Washington University students in St. Louis know their stuff when it comes to dirty energy, but they are especially agitated about what’s going on right under their noses. Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, two of the largest coal companies in the U.S., are both headquartered in St. Louis.

When they each donated $5 million (along with Ameren UE’s $2 million) to set up the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization on the Wash U campus, students saw the reality behind the smog mask.

Last November, the Student Union passed a resolution urging the University to change the name of the consortium because “clean coal” is a lie.  Good for them !  When the University sponsored a theatrical “symposium” presenting the benefits of “green coal,” (no, that’s not a typo) the students answered with a counter rally of their own.

Yesterday, the Wash U Student Union sponsored a debate between Bruce Nilles, leader of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, and Fred Palmer,  Senior VP of Government Relations at Peabody Energy.  Prior to yesterday’s event, Bruce Nilles had an op-ed in the student newspaper presenting the case against coal in a nutshell.

When the two debaters came out on stage at Graham Chapel, I kind of felt sorry for Fred Palmer.  But the old geezer held up his end of the bargain pretty well considering the audience was filled with anti-coal people.  Mr. Palmer is originally from Phoenix and showed off his cowboy boots.  He let it slip that he feels trapped here in “the middle of the country.”  Poor guy.  But he spends lots of time in D.C. and China selling his smokescreen of carnival tricks too.

According to Mr. Palmer, coal is responsible for all the wonderful things humans enjoy.  Instead of carrying bundles of twigs on our backs to heat our homes, we can just turn on the furnace and VOILA, the magic of electricity warms us, keeps the lights on, powers our computers and makes life better for people everywhere.  I kid you not.  He actually said that caring for people is Peabody’s first priority.  

Comparing modern power plants to bundles of twigs is one of those “the hand is quicker than the eye” carnival illusions lobbyists are so good at.  Keep the rubes distracted while you dazzle them with nonsense.

Keep in mind that Missouri gets 83.5% of its energy from those black rocks loaded with carbon, making it one of the brownest states in the nation.  Keep in mind that coal ash is full of deadly stuff that contaminates the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Bruce Nilles reminded us that the only reason coal is the cheapest source of energy is because the true cost is externalized to the general population.  E.g., the three coal plants in the St. Louis area create $750 million each year in health care and clean up costs.  As student leader Kady McFadden asked in the introduction to the debate, “Is cheap energy worth the cost?”

In response to Palmer’s claim that coal energy is good for America, Nilles asked, if so, why isn’t West Virginia one of the richest states in the union instead of one of the poorest?

If audience members expected the Peabody spokesman to be embarrassed about the damage done by mountain top mining or the explosion that killed 29 Americans in West Virginia recently, no need to hold our breath.  Palmer defused that awkward topic right away by saying Peabody hasn’t mined in West VA in three years and he felt really bad about those poor guys who died in a Massey mine.  His chart showing Peabody’s safety record made my heart leap with pride, and I think I heard strains of “America, the Beautiful” wafting throught the open windows.

When asked about progress being made with alternative forms of energy, Nilles pointed to Ontario, Los Angeles and Wisconsin.  Because Canadians all pay for health care from one big pool of money, they see the direct impact of pollution on their medical bills.  They are phasing out all of their coal-fired plants.  There are no coal plants in California, but LA has been buying its power from out-of-state plants. They’ve recently decided to bring that economic piece of the pie back to their own city.  Wisconsin state buildings had been using coal from Wyoming but are switching to wind and solar in order to create jobs for their own people.

Climate legislation is “on life support” in Washington, according to Nilles, because the dirty energy companies are putting the screws to Congress. The EPA is supposedly considering a move to label coal ash “hazardous” which would be a real game changer.  Sen. McCaskill is on record as being opposed to the new designation.  We don’t even have to wonder where Sen. Bond stands on this, do we?  Call Sen. McCaskill.  Who knows?  Maybe a ton people calling her might outweigh a ton of coal money. Check out EarthJustice’s web page on coal ash with link to EPA.

 Watch the Great Coal Debate here and be prepared for future actions by Wash U students. On May 21st, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu will address the graduating class.  Fred Palmer claims that Chu is “on board” with the new “green coal” technology.  We’ll see.

Let’s hope Chuck Hatfield spends more time and has more success lobbying for Wind Capital Group than Peabody Energy (the coal company.)