From the Heartland Institute. Her’s a case where the alarmist side of the debate automatically seems to think it is “big oil” central, until such time they have to admit to their mistakes.
Washington Post Corrects Lies About Heartland Institute, Prints Rebuttal
Guest post by Jim Lakely*
A week or so ago, The Washington Post ran an err0r-filled, old-news hit piece against The Heartland Institute titled, “Climate skeptic group works to reverse renewable energy mandates.” Reporter Juliet Eilperin and I exchanged a few emails several days before the story ran, yet she somehow managed to print this lie:
The Heartland Institute received more than $7.3 million from Exxon Mobil between 1998 and 2010, and nearly $14.4 million between 1986 and 2010 from foundations affiliated with Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch.
Eilperin was only off by a factor of 10 regarding Exxon (putting aside Heartland hasn’t received a dime from Exxon since 2006), and off by a factor of at 400 regarding the Kochs. (Our first gift from them in a decade was $25,000 for health care work, not climate).
I say “somehow,” but I know where she got it: from the lies printed at DeSmog Blog. In fact, it was at least a double fail on Eilperin’s part. She grabbed a lie wrapped in a mistake, and printed that as fact — without even calling or emailing me to ask if, say, it’s true that Heartland has been the beneficiary of some $21 million from Exxon and the Kochs in the last decade or so.
That’s a pretty significant sum of money, no? Perhaps something a reporter might check — or an editor might insist be checked. Alas, for The Washington Post — as it is for all of the corrupt mainstream media — the idea that Heartland is lighting cigars with endless hundred dollar bills from “Big Oil” is a “fact” too good to check.
The Post did correct its story, but it was too late for the purpose of truth and responsible reporting. The lies and errors are now permanent online, and were repeated in papers around the world. (The Boston Globe ran the uncorrected story on December 2, one week after a “correction” moved over the Post’s wire service. Funny how that happened.)
The unbearable embarrassment of The Washington Post publishing a correction and rebuttal written by The Heartland Institute could have all been avoided with a simple email, phone call, or text from Eilperin to me — a contact within an organization that has never gotten a fair shake from the MSM, but a contact who will freely and honestly communicate with any reporter.
It’s not easy to resist the temptation to tell the MSM to pound sand, but I used to work among them. So I still deal with the MSM on honest terms: I don’t lie, so I expect the same — not sympathetic coverage, but honest reporting. Sadly (for our republic), that is not the standard of today’s MSM. (Full disclosure: Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.)
That’s enough background. Here’s the unedited letter from Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast, submitted to The Washington Post and published (almost in its entirety) in their newspaper on December 1. Any references to Al Gore, I was told by The Post, were removed for “space reasons”:
They say truth is the first casualty of war. In the war of words over global warming (aka “climate change”) that is plainly the case.
Last week the Washington Post ran a news article that falsely claimed my organization, The Heartland Institute, received millions of dollars from Exxon Mobil and foundations affiliated with Charles G. and David H. Koch [“Climate skeptic group works to reverse renewable energy mandates,” by Juliet Eilperin, Nov. 24].
Not true. ExxonMobil over the course of a decade gave less than a tenth of the amount reported, never amounting to even 5 percent of our annual receipts. The reported level of support from the Kochs was even more egregiously wrong: Except for a gift of $25,000 last year for our work on health care reform, the Kochs hadn’t donated a dime since 1998.
The Washington Post ran a correction on its web site, but the damage was done. The article has been reprinted without correction in scores and perhaps hundreds of newspapers throughout the country. It adds to the false narrative that the only persons and organizations that question the dogma of man-made global warming are shills for the oil industry.
We aren’t. We have more than 5,000 donors, receive only a small fraction of our support from the fossil fuel industry (and always have), and we work with hundreds of highly qualified scientists to simply speak the truth about climate change.
Where do we go to get our reputation back?
The article misrepresented our work as well as our funding. The Heartland Institute is not “critical of climate change science.” We are one of its leading supporters, having hosted seven international conferences (with an eighth one taking place in Munich this week) and published a comprehensive survey of the scientific literature in two volumes, with a third volume on its way.
We spend more supporting climate science than all but a handful of public policy think tanks.
Eilperin reports we ran a billboard “comparing those who believe in global warming to domestic terrorist Theodore J. Kaczynski.” Also untrue. The billboard simply reported the fact that the infamous Unabomber still believes in man-made global warming, despite the mounting scientific case against it, and asked viewers if they do, too. If you doubt the veracity of the billboard, just Google “Al Gore and the Unabomber” and take a quiz to see if you can tell their positions on global warming apart.
It’s been a long time since the Washington Post ran an article that was anything other than dismissive or worse on the efforts of sincere and hard-working scientists and organizations that say the case hasn’t been made that man-made global warming is a threat to either public health or the environment. That’s a disservice to the newspaper’s readers, and because of the paper’s stature, to the nation.
Joseph L. Bast is president of The Heartland Institute, a national nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois.
* Only the section of the post in italics above was written by Bast, the remainder in Jim Lakely. The attribution in the header has been corrected.
In the UK, the print media have been in the news themselves a lot this year due to their methods and low standards. Not many people are holding their breath in expectation of any great improvement.
“Honest reporting” is an oxymoron. Usually the lies are by omission rather than commission. Since telling the MSM to “pound sand” is unproductive, at least remind them of their malfeasance in this case at the beginning and end of every interview you give from now on until they’re beyond sick of hearing it. The only hope of fair treatment is to shame/annoy them into it.
“is a fact too good to check.”
Beautiful, says it all, and I’ll be using it whenever I can crowbar it into a conversation.
Well done Joe, but unfortunately they got the headline first. It is always that first headline that seems to stick in the public’s mind which is why we so often see science by press release. No matter how thoroughly the debunking is that damned headline is what sticks. That is what happens when you have collusion between the media and the CAGW gang and it’s just plain unfair.
” (Full disclosure: Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.) ”
Worthless. Certainly worth far, far less than the back-slapping, congratulations and jollity in the editor’s suite. That, for the Eilperin’s of the modern world, is priceless.
Oldest trick in the book, BBC did it with the Hillsborough (football) disaster – reported that the fans were at fault and that the police were the injured party. It took over 20 years before the truth came out, after several court cases, that the police lied. It is almost impossible to backtrack from an initial lie, unless you have lots of power and money to force it. I wonder how many years it will take before the biggest lie of them all is exposed?
WaPo, another smear in a long line of smears and outright lies and apology not accepted because: the seed has been planted.
Still, a scant and small consolation – the Doha gabfest replete with interfering anti science meddlers, is as usual so up its own fundament. A merry-go-round of; third world despots entreating handouts, NGOs and bogus charities, anti science bureaucrats all with a God complex, the whirr is manic.
But…….they’ve not realised Kyoto is fast fading to dust but the tactics have changed.
Agenda 21 is alive and kicking, Obama is still forcing the carbon emissions levy and CAGW has not gone away in the bureaucrats minds, tho’ mamma nature may [does] have other ideas. Be prepared for a cold, long and harsh winter – we are in Europe.
Charle H. says:
December 5, 2012 at 6:06 am
Oldest trick in the book, BBC did it with the Hillsborough (football) disaster – reported that the fans were at fault and that the police were the injured party.
People in Liverpool related to the victims blame Murdoch’s Sun newspaper for the Hillsborough lies, rather than the BBC. The BBC has been heavily criticised over recent false allegations of paedophilia against a former government minister.
*Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.*
Not much, is what that’s worth. She apologizes in order to minimize the threat of possible legal action, but her sense of rage against Heartland, and desire to ‘expose’ them has probably redoubled.
Before anyone screams BIG OIL! compare and contrast.
[My bold] These are staggering sums. It clearly shows a well funded denialist machine. Now let’s take a look at a tiny fraction of the funding for the truth tellers.
and this:
Very tiny sums as you can see. I could go on and on but I think you get the picture. Its called Big Oil Money for Me, But Not for Thee
Did I mention that Pachauri set up a residual oil extraction technology company some years back?
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=27919769
Well, it’s as start. A small one, but a start.
Or an anomoly, take your pick. 🙂
About that apology, so she realized her whole article was slanted and regrets her blind ideological devotion in writing it in the first place? Or is her regret that her article was so easily, quickly, profoundly and publicly discredited? And is she still glad that it got around the world uncorrected – doing the world the “good” she intended? What’s she doing to correct the harm – writing a different article?
Well down under the usual suspects and doom and gloom merchants came crawling out of the woodwoork and sandstones to frighten the children at bedtime over the latest COP-ulater knees up for catastrophists and silly mask wearers- http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/putting_the_doh_into_doha/
Their shooting star was in the ascendancy when Oz was in the grip of a long general drought, busily building extravagant desal plants for their predicted permanent lack of runoff and rivers and dams that would never fill again. You make calamitous predictions and then the floods come and you just look stupid along with your computer modelling. ‘The main challenge is mental’ alright with these sad sacks –
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/five-tips-for-living-on-the-unrecognisable-earth-of-the-future-20121203-2aqmk.html#ixzz2DyrmguOf
(hat tip Andrew Bolt)
As the population increasingly turns off to their doomsaying drivel they just become more frenetic, shrill and embarassing. The cultural cringe factor must be devastating for any real climate science out there now, which is the real tragedy.
Keep in mind that much of the corporate “donations” to tax-deductable groups are in the form of matching employee giving. If you look you will find the same corporations also donations to Greenpeace, WWF, etc. All deductable giving must be reported, whether it is a direct gift/grant from the corporation or simply a match of employee giving. In the summary reports it all looks the same.
Thus for any large corporation which does employee gift matching you will see gifts reported to groups on both sides of every controversial issue. My employer for example, will report a 2012 donation to the Heartland Institute matching a gift I made. Both are no doubt dwarfed by employee matching gifts to pro-AGW groups.
So it is wrong to attribute any corporate direction to the mere fact they report gifts to various groups. You have to separate out the actual grants/gifts from the corporation from just matching gifts.
Any journalist should know this.
Thanks for reporting this story here, Mr Bast. As a UK citizen, many of these things can slip past. I can only imagine how difficult the fight is for you against the combined forces of your national media – none of whom, it seems, are ever interested in hearing the arguments of CAGW skeptics. It’s much the same here in the the UK; national broadsheets such as The Guardian and The Independent act pretty much as poster boys for the pro-CAGW cause, whilst the BBC is now little more than a publicly-funded CAGW propaganda machine, choosing (by its own clumsy admission) to ‘screen out’ (aka ‘censor’) the voices of any who take issue with the CAGW bandwagon.
Keep up the good fight at Heartland. You guys are doing a wonderful job in fighting against this relentless bullying from (very well funded) climate zealots and you have fans all over the world, of which I am one. I look forward to reading the news coming out of your latest conference.
“Any references to Al Gore, I was told by The Post, were removed for ‘space reasons'”
Yes, Al Gore has gained weight. Instead of his nose growing, Al’s growing all over.
I can’t wait for Greenpeace and WWF to disclose how much oil money they get so they can be accused of being paid shills for the oil companys.
mrsean2k says:
December 5, 2012 at 5:49 am
“is a fact too good to check.”
Beautiful, says it all, and I’ll be using it whenever I can crowbar it into a conversation.
======================================================
Dang! Beat me to it, mrsean2k. I’m adding that turn of phrase to my vocabulary, too. It really sums up the mindset – not the competence – of today’s MSM.
‘Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.’ (from The Idler, 1758)
And so it goes. (Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five)
Not the first time this exact same sort of thing happened. The following is from Fred Singer after the publication of a 1997 book that insinuated he was on the payroll of ‘big coal & oil’: “We have yet to catch a glimpse of Gelbspan here at SEPP. In gathering material for his book, he never visited our offices, spoke to no one on staff, and never contacted Fred Singer for an interview to cover point-by-point the claims he later made in his book. He has had no contact with the Project whatsoever….” http://web.archive.org/web/19980710220020/http://sepp.org/controv/gelbspan.html
Ross Gelbspan (around which Desmogblog was formed, as Joe Romm told us in 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/01/07/202254/kudos-to-desmogblog/?mobile=nc ) has every appearance of being what I call the epicenter of the long-term smear of skeptic climate scientists, and was the subject of my February article about another attack on the Heartland Institute, “Fakegate Opens a Door: More than meets the eye in the Heartland controversy” http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/fakegate_opens_a_door.html
I’d like to know where the Heartland Institute stands in the issue of fossil fuel subsidies. You know, being non-Big Oil and all…
Fact checking newspaper articles has gone the way of checking climate models against ground truth data.
It is actually a planned endeavor. Getting the lie out there will then become a “sourced” fact, regardless of the retraction. Just another Stalinist tactic by the Alarmists.
When the expressed goal of the UN and other Statist schemers is to use CAGW to alarm emotionally and change the filtering perception of each person, this kind of “mistake” is unlikely to be an accident. The crisis is needed to justify the socio-economic transformation. So it is important that groups like the Heartland Institute questioning the self-serving modelling and its variance with demonstrable facts have their reputations tainted from the get-go.
So the criticisms and pernicious facts never make it through the carefully constructed Mindset believing the imminence of Catastrophe.
I hate to be so cynical but I have been rereading a dissertation on using Systems Thinking to change the prevailing World-view to a cultural/ecological Mindset and away from the mechanistic socio-technological view from the Enlightenment. Now in the scheming documents the planners will admit systems thinking is just a useful metaphor for realizing political and economic change in the future. When they give professional development seminars though, the participants are led to believe systems thinking reflects factual reality.
And that is supposedly how we get to fundamental global Transformative Change. And the Heartland Institute and Anthony and Jo Nova are all in the way.
@Alexandre 7.47am
Statement before the Senate Finance Committee
Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure March 27, 2012
FY2010 Electricity Production Subsidies and Support per megawatt-hour
(year 2010 dollars)
Natural Gas, Petroleum Liquids 0.63
Coal (pulverized) 0.64
Hydroelectric 0.84
Biomass 2.00
Nuclear 3.10
Geothermal 12.50
Wind 52.48
Solar 968.00
So subsidies per MWh to Wind and Solar are 100 – 1500 times the cost of subsidies to the Big oil. You didn’t really think your question through did you?
That’s how the old media roll. Now that it was in the WaPo, wikipedia will use the numbers citing WaPo as a “reliable source”.
Alexandre says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:47 am
“I’d like to know where the Heartland Institute stands in the issue of fossil fuel subsidies. You know, being non-Big Oil and all…”
Here we go again, confusing government handouts with capital writeoffs.
Alexandre says:December 5, 2012 at 7:47 am
I’d like to know where the Heartland Institute stands in the issue of fossil fuel subsidies. You know, being non-Big Oil and all…
According to the link you provided $58B was paid globally in so called oil subsidies. In 2004, according to energy.gov, we in the USA used 140 billion gallons of gasoline, for which $70B in taxes at the pump was collected. And don’t for get the corporate tax on the wholesale sales, and the taxes paid by the oil employees to make the gasoline, etc. So where is the subsidy? Your so-called oil subsidies are smoke and mirrors, nothing more.
For got to mention the $58B was paid in 2011.
RHS says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:26 am
“I can’t wait for Greenpeace and WWF to disclose how much oil money they get so they can be accused of being paid shills for the oil companys.”
Looks like Donna LaFramboise can help.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.de/2010/06/bp-greenpeace-big-oil-jackpot.html
Charle H. says:
December 5, 2012 at 6:06 am
Oldest trick in the book, BBC did it with the Hillsborough (football) disaster – reported that the fans were at fault and that the police were the injured party.
——————————–
Nope. That was a front page splash in The Sun (prop. R. Murdoch). Of course, the BBC, like everyone else, reported the furor over the Sun story but I’ve never seen anyone seriously blame the BBC for their reporting in this case.
No need to be as inaccurate with accusations as the Washington Post.
Of course the current orthodoxy that fans actions (the ones creating the pressure at the back, NOT the victims) had ZERO to do with the tragedy is no more true than the idea that the police were blameless. (After all, if everyone had just stood still when their way was blocked no-one would have died. )
As is often the case with orthodoxies we’ve swapped one inaccuracy for a different, more convenient, inaccuracy – something which could easily happen with aspects of CAGW.
RHS says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:26 am
I can’t wait for Greenpeace and WWF to disclose how much oil money they get so they can be accused of being paid shills for the oil companys.
_____________________________
That is easy just go to ActivistCash and start looking at what foundations donate to who.
Steve Keohane says:
December 5, 2012 at 8:38 am
Regarding the whining about fossil fuel “subsidies”, it would be interesting to see Alexendre’s opinion on these “subsidies” listed in his source:
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Petroleum) : 336 Million
Fuel-Tax Exemptions for Farmers: 1 Billion (that’s a B)
Strategic Petroleum Reserves: 1 Billion (Hell, the way that one’s been used, it should be charged back to the DNC as a campaign contribution)
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Nat Gas): 1.7 Billion (that’s a B too)
Credit for Investment in Clean-Coal Facilities: 370 Million
Amortisation of Certain Pollution-Control Facilities: 200 Million
Jeez, maybe they ought to count food stamps as a fossil fuel subsidy too, since they are used to buy food produced by those farmers who get those huge Fossil Fuel tax exemptions, or allow poor people to spend more to fill their tanks.
It’s truly sad that an industry that enables our having cheap, abundant light, motive power, heat, electric power, etc., has been so successfully tarred (sorry) as something evil. It is also amazing that the broad public accepts this tarring when, in the absence of this industry, we (and our goods) would all be reduced to getting around by foot or by horses (talk about an environmental nightmare for cities), have illumination by whale oil, food would cost 5X more (and be scarce), heat with wood, have to poop in privies, take months to get to the latest global warming conference, etc., and (egads!) have no Facebook or Netflix.
“Jimbo says:
December 5, 2012 at 6:32 am
Before anyone screams BIG OIL! compare and contrast.”
Good one, Jimbo, actual facts that I can cite whenever someone brings up the “Big Oil” canard.
“Full disclosure: Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.”
That and $3 will get you a cup of coffee.
His response letter would have been more effective if it had left out the Unabomber part. The logic is twisted. Would Bast think it relevant that a Nazi sympathizer believes global warming is overstated? Certainly not.
I understand the desire to respond in kind to malicious labeling, such as “denier”—and don’t necessarily discount it in certain, limited scenarios—but every opportunity should be taken to let that billboard be forgotten.
“That is easy just go to ActivistCash and start looking at what foundations donate to who.”
Except they whitewash the money through multiple foundations.
Perhaps we should start noting where each of the climate groups gets its money. Big oil contributes to warmists too, but even more from government. They are the ones getting the BIG MONEY.
If Juliet Eilperin and company were seriously on the up and up, they would realize that they have been handed a new and perhaps better story. How could a major, respectable news outlet be so easily fooled? Where are all these lies about ‘deniers” coming from? And who is funding these lies? Are they aware of what they are paying for?
There’s a very real story here if someone has the guts to pursue it.
Warmists get millions from oil companies and Al Gore made his money in oil. Wind developers got their money from oil. Oil is everywhere in climate change religion. They are the beneficiaries of oil money, plain and simple. Keep repeating this far and wide–oil LOVES climate change and pays millions into the cause. The DNC received millions, literally. So keep repeating: Climate change money comes from oil.
And how many hundreds of millions did Hadley/CRU receive in that time?????
The fossil fuel companies will all sell their entire inventory over time no matter what transpires. If prices rise they just win more/faster. Playing climate suits them just fine; Both sides against the middle. They just get far more bang for their bucks in the alarmist camp. They ain’t dumb.
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
― Winston Churchill
The Russians have a proverb for that:
Jimbo: You printed the WaPost’s retraction. It would be helpful if you printed a link to it, so our side could repost the link when the rebutting a claim based on the original article. The content alone is insufficient.
Seems my encouraging thoughts of balanced journalism are very short lived. The CBC is blocking any real world data from being posted on todays doom and gloom DOHA story. And they wonder why the younger generation have stopped listening to the MSM. The MSM, having shot off one foot are reloading and taking aim at the other with their continued one sided coverage of this subject.
Here are some posts from the past (on WUWT) wrt subsidies:
================
HaroldW says:
June 22, 2010 at 10:33 am
there are some subsidies, but they are actually really small.
1: royalties paid to foreign countries and states are credited for tax purposes…. as it should be.
if you paid for raw material, it has be considered as expense.
2: research credit that is available to ALL INDUSTRIES is available to oil&gas. there is nothing special here.
3: govt pays poor people for heat. that is welfare. not a subsidy to oil&gas. That money can be used for electric heat, even if it is hydro electric or other “renewable” source.
4: investment credits available to everyone is available to oil&gas. where is the subsidy there?
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Luke says:
September 26, 2011 at 10:44 am
Most of those $4.0 billion in “subsidies” are not specific to the oil & gas industry. They break down as follows:
$1.7 billion in Domestic Manufacturing Credits: Applies to all production companies equally. A reward for creating/leaving the jobs in the US economy. You can argue whether or not they can move this production from the US, since the oil is located here, but it is clear that they can move the exploration equipment to anywhere in the world and ship the oil in. There is no requirement that oil used domestically must be produced in the US. So given that, what other industries should we strip this credit from?
$1.0 billion in % depletion allowance: Applies specifically to the oil and gas industry as a mechanism for capital recovery. It takes the place of depreciating the assets in the ground. Of course we don’t like to talk about the dark side of this one, which is when oil prices are lower for a sustained period of time, it acts like an anti-subsidy, so this one can cut both ways and at time has. Easy solution is to use capital base instead of income. Over the long haul though, I doubt this equals $1.0 billion a year. Just $1.0 billion a year in the current price environment.
$0.9 billion in foreign tax credit: This one again, applies equally to all. The dodgy part with this is classification of royalty payments as income taxes. Some foreign governments have converted royalty payments to income taxes, allowing for greater deductibility under US tax law. This, however, is not unique to the oil industry. So again, who else would you like to strip this one from?
$0.8 billion in intangible drilling costs: This one is specific to the oil and gas industry. This however is not a subsidy. Period. Exclamation Point! At best, this is a shifting of tax payments to later years. It allows the oil company to deduct their exploration expenses immediately. When this rule was enacted, it actually made sense because 90% of those expenses were written off in the first year anyway because of the abysmal hit rate for new wells, as opposed to the alternative which is adding it to the depreciation base for a new well. Now that the hit rate is much better, maybe it’s time to rethink the break, but it will not provide an $0.8 billion dollar annual windfall. It might provided a short term difference, but after 4-5 years under the new rules, you’d be pretty much back to the same annual number for “tax breaks” resulting from intangible drilling costs.
—————–
Jeremy says:
September 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is proposing to end what he says are $4 billion a year in tax subsidies to the biggest oil companies.”
Firstly, all Oil Companies pay taxes on earnings just like any corporation. According to data found in the Standard & Poor’s Compustat North American Database, the industry’s 2009 net income tax expenses — essentially their effective marginal income tax rate — averaged 41 percent, compared to 26 percent for the S&P Industrial companies. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) concludes that, as an additional part of their tax obligation, the major energy-producing companies paid or incurred over $280 billion of income tax expenses between 2006 and 2008.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/25/the-truth-about-americas-oil-gas-companies-part-i/ .
Secondly, according to the ONRR, annual revenues from federal onshore and offshore (OCS) mineral leases are one of the federal government’s largest sources of non-tax revenue. In 2010, Royalty Revenue amounted to around $8 Billion
http://www.onrr.gov/
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chris y says:
September 26, 2011 at 9:31 am
“U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is proposing to end what he says are $4 billion a year in tax subsidies to the biggest oil companies.”
That $4B amounts to 1.6 cents per gallon of gasoline.
Did Schumer also propose an end to Federal, state and local gasoline taxes to ‘even the playing field’?
Did Schumer also propose an equivalent tax on solar and wind energy to ‘even the playing field?’
—————
Catcracking says:
December 3, 2011 at 7:20 am
One favorites of Pelosi is the reduction in royalities that was set up during the Clinton Administration to give companies an incentive to drill in deep water offshore in the Gulf when oil prices were low. Royalities are still paid but circa 20 % less. It was a good business deal for both sides at the time and improved for the drillers as oil prices rose. So now many of the tax and spend crowd want to change the contract and threaten those who refuse to comply with blackballing them from biding on new leases. How else can they make renewable energy sources look competitive?
Another item frequently referenced is the accelerated write off of capital expenses to encourage investment and boost the economy that is offered to every other business.
A third item is the foreign tax credits offered to all companies that bring foreign earnings back to the US.
—————
Janice says:
December 3, 2011 at 7:36 am
There is a hidden subsidy for both solar and wind power, one that could easily be avoided, but never will be because it is not politically expedient. The subsidy is the amount of money it takes to remove solar and wind farms once the parent company abandons them. It usually winds up being public money that is used, since the parent companies usually go bankrupt and are dissolved. It could easily be avoided if the parent companies were forced to post a bond equal to the amount it would take to remove the equipment, and restore the area. And that is a subsidy which coal and oil do not enjoy, because they are forced to remediate their mining and drilling sites.
We are all ‘babes in the woods’ when it comes to the PR Dirty War that has been conducted by Warmist/Greens over the last twenty years. They have this battle won, hands down.
However down on the ground amongst real people there is a slow and steady dawning of the truth.
None of us who post here should ever miss an opportunity – ever – to point out to friends, acquaintances and complete strangers the ridiculousness of CAGW.
Let them have the Media…noted serial liars on subjects like: Wars, Economics, Pedophiles, Computer Hacking, Political Parties etc etc.
This is where the War will be won, house to house…hand to hand.
Much CAGW nonsense relies on proof by repeated baseless assertion. Its repetition is cited as evidence of its truth, it is a variant of the appeal to authority or appeal to belief. A quote from Lenin says: “A Lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
wte9 says:
December 5, 2012 at 9:48 am
“His response letter would have been more effective if it had left out the Unabomber part.”
But it was the WaPo that brought it up in the first place. According to Bast: “Eilperin reports we ran a billboard “comparing those who believe in global warming to domestic terrorist Theodore J. Kaczynski.” So Eilperin wrote it, and Bast is left to try and extricate himself from it.
It seems that AGW is the issue by which you can tell the professionalism and integrity of an organisation. WaPo is just another organisation (including BBC, ABC, CBC, Time, the Economist etc) that gets things so wrong, routinely, that you are left wondering about the quality and truthfulness of the rest of its output. 28gate revealed that the BBC is biased, that the bias is corporate wide and endorsed by the senior managers at the Beeb.
Et tu WaPo?
Its no wonder the MSM is losing its constituency and its relevance.
Any reason why Ms Eilperin would not post here to defend her position?
Or to put it another way:
“Ms Eilperin, would you like to respond?”
Hello??
It should be demanded that she write to all the subsequent publishers of the erroneous article to ensure they publish with it the apology in full with a copy of the letter from Heartland in full. If she is sincere in her apology, this should be the very least she can do.
To Leftists, once a lie is told, it becomes truth.
Welcome to 1984.
RHS says:
December 5, 2012 at 7:26 am
I can’t wait for Greenpeace and WWF to disclose how much oil money they get so they can be accused of being paid shills for the oil companys.
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Gail Combs says:
That is easy just go to ActivistCash and start looking at what foundations donate to who.
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I posted this on the WeatherZone (Aus) forum about a month ago;
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthreads.php/topics/1140397/Re_The_Climate_Change_Politics#Post1140397
There’s a further post 2 under this one.
Most people I speak to about the CAGW scare simply don’t believe it. No matter how much scientists, activists and journalists babble on about science being non-debatable and that people must be manipulated to accept their message, the average person who has the time to think about the CAGW fiction just rejects it and gets on with trying to live their lives.
The fact that newspapers persistently write scare stories about something which people disbelieve only serves to reduce the credibility of all news output. If the Washington Post had the courage to do the politically unthinkable and write balanced stories about climate science, challenging the scare and exposing the inept, flawed and dishonest science behind it they might find their circulation increasing instead of falling by 7.84% as it did last year.
http://accessabc.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/the-top-u-s-newspapers-for-march-2012/
It starts in in the journalism schools where students are indoctrinated and equipped with all the tools needed to further the agenda, somehow missing out on the ethics of the profession. It is reinforced in the offices and halls of outlets such as the WaPo, NYT, and LAT where these “journalists” learn that anything that furthers the agenda is OK, including making up “facts,” parroting the lies of others, and avoidance of real investigative journalism.
Media outlets have always been liberal, but sometime in the last thirty years, they passed from sympathy to out and out advocacy. In doing so they contribute more than their share to our rapid decline.
If only! The problem is that their shrinking audience is increasingly liberal, and as a result, the MSM would lose circulation if they stepped on their touchy toes. Look what happened when PBS gave Anthony a fair shake, or when the BBC once gave a balanced report on something, etc. The believers make an almighty stink. The MSM is terrified of offending them.
The situation is made more difficult for the MSM by the complicated nature of the controversy. Rebutting or cutting down to size many warmist assertions requires lots of space and many thrusts and parries–and the MSM doesn’t have the space or expertise to do so. It’s easier not to inflame the mob.
When the “mistakes” go the same (ideological) direction almost every time, they aren’t mistakes.
Almost anything else I could think to say with regards to the “profession” of “journalism” would never make it past the mods.
They do this to everyone, all the time. It’s the *norm*, an honest journalist is far and away the exception.
Noblesse Oblige says:
December 5, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Media outlets have always been liberal, but sometime in the last thirty years, they passed from sympathy to out and out advocacy. In doing so they contribute more than their share to our rapid decline.
The difference is not the time, it’s that people have other sources of information to compare them to.
They were just as dishonest 30 years ago, if perhaps a tiny bit more subtle.
References to Al Gore removed “for space reasons”?
Censorship has many, many guises…
Here are her columns when Juliet Eilperin wrote for the Huffington Post. Standard issued leftist claptrap. Her mother works/ed for Committee for Concerned Scientist.
“Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.”
It’s not worth a damn thing. She’s just sorry she got caught, and will be happy to lie again, hoping she can get away with it next time. >:-(
The only way to make the likes of the grubby Juliet Eilperin truly repentant is to take away a large chunk of their money … talk is cheap, taking their money hurts. Sue Eilperin and the Washington Post for a ‘motza’ (Aussie term) and their bleating as a consequence will correct the indifference of the MSM to reporting truth over the CAGW industry lies and deceipt.
” Those numbers represent donations to all the organizations that co-sponsored the institute’s climate conference in May 2012. ”
that’s a retraction? looks like an amplification to me.
deepest apologies from somebody who’s shallow to the bone… for screwing up by not revealing the huge army of well funded klimate kaffirs…
she’s saying it’s worse than she thought – hardly an apology. she obviously thinks everybody is stupid.
wte9 says:
December 5, 2012 at 9:48 am
ls
“His response letter would have been more effective if it had left out the Unabomber part.”
I was gonna suggest a billboard of Kaczynsk reading the Washington Post, but I guess not now.
Journalistic Integrity is no longer the MSM goal. “The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. … The real arena is corrupt and bloody.” – Saul Alinsky
It never ceases to amaze me how many people do not have the foggiest idea about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
Hiding in plain sight helps, I suppose. Her boss definitely attends, maybe those lower down the food chain also on occasion.
Hilarious really when you look at the big picture. Here we have an example of the news media deciding to print a pack of lies because it suits the political line it wants to take. The MSM haven’t realised that the existence of the internet means the game is up – the lies do not lie uncovered they are immediately exposed on the internet. As a result people start to realise that the MSM is lying to them. They think “Why should I waste my time and money buying a newspaper that is just telling me lies?”. No reason at all is there?
So the decline of the MSM is assured. People only have to realise they have been lied to once for them to think “Why am I wasting a dime on this fantasy rag?”. It doesn’t have to be a lie about climate change. Every time they tell a lie to support their own position they dig their own grave, just as the Independent and the Guardian are digging their own graves here in the UK.
Ryan says:
Hilarious really when you look at the big picture. Here we have an example of the news media deciding to print a pack of lies because it suits the political line it wants to take. The MSM haven’t realised that the existence of the internet means the game is up – the lies do not lie uncovered they are immediately exposed on the internet.
No, I think they realize it, and they’re working in concert with the UN and national governments to find more ways to stifle the dissent by controlling the internet.
Has anyone else noticed that the MSM has been keeping very quiet about Al Gore? It seems the only time he gets any mention is when he makes statements intended for the press. And alarmists seem do everything they can to not say his name, and when his name is brought up they get extremely perturbed and do everything they can to shut the discussion down, or change the subject. I post a great deal in the usenet newsgroup alt.global-warming and you can get an easy reaction by simply saying Al Gores name. They get positively childish in their vituperative reactions. My guess is that Al Gore has done his thing with his powerpoint presentation and is now working diligently and quietly in DC with the Democrats in power to funnel as much tax money as humanly possible towards the agw nonsense, ie. his alternative energy and green investment cronies (including himself) and the United Nations. We need to ferret him out and examine what he’s up to. We ought not to ignore the fox in the hen house, regardless of how quiet he is.