Guest essay by Chris Horner
Emails obtained by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) show that the offices of New York Democratic Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and those of other politically aligned AGs, secretly teamed up with anti-fossil fuel activists to launch investigations against groups whose political speech challenged the global warming policy agenda.
These emails, obtained under open records laws, shed light on what followed after a January meeting, reported by the Wall Street Journal on April 14, in which groups funded by anti-fossil fuel Rockefeller interests met to urge just this sort of investigation and litigation against political opponents.
Recently, after the think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) criticized the AGs’ intimidation campaign, U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Earl Walker — one of the AGs working with Schneiderman — subpoenaed ten years of the non-profit organization’s records relating to climate change.
The latest email release strongly suggests a financial incentive for AGs to pursue their political opponents, rather than merely silencing and scaring away support for those who dare disagree with their extreme global warming agenda.
The e-mail correspondence between Schneiderman’s staff, the offices of several state attorneys general, and various activists covers the weeks leading up to a March 29 “publicity stunt” press conference with former Vice President Al Gore, to announce the targeting of opponents of the global warming agenda.
The correspondence shows government officials actively trying to hide their coordination, by using a “Common Interest Agreement.” This sought to protect as privileged the discussions about defending President Obama’s controversial global warming rules, and going after political opponents using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Most intriguingly, this sought to hide discussions among the AGs, “their staff and certain outside advisors”. These communications and coordination included:
- Lem Srolovic, chief of the New York Attorney General’s Environmental Protection Bureau
- Scot Kline, a Vermont assistant attorney general
- Matt Pawa, an environmental lawyer who works with the Climate Accountability Institute and the Global Warming Legal Action Project of the Civil Society Institute
- Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists
Pawa and Frumhoff have been pushing for this investigation for years, at least since a 2012 workshop entitled “Establishing Accountability for Climate Change Denial,” a brainstorming session in California for activists on ways to convince state attorneys general to investigate “deniers” using RICO laws.
As the Vermont and New York correspondence show, Pawa and Frumhoff were invited to secretly brief the state attorneys general. They each received 45 minutes to provide arguments on “climate change litigation” and “the imperative of taking action now” immediately prior to the AGs’ press conference, according to schedules prepared by Schneiderman’s office.
The next day, March 30, Pawa wrote to Eric Srolovic of Schneiderman’s office and Vermont’s Scott Kline seeking help. A Wall Street Journal reporter wanted to talk to Pawa, and he asked the two officials:
“What should I say if she asks if I attended?”
Srolovic replied:
“My ask is if you speak to the reporter, to not confirm that you attended or otherwise discuss the event.”
The documents obtained by E&E Legal also include responses to a questionnaire sent to the state attorneys general by Schneiderman’s office. U.S. Virgin Islands AG Walker reveals his interest, having just completed an $800 million settlement from Hess Oil company, in “identifying other potential litigation targets” and ways to “increase our leverage.” The Hess money, Walker wrote, was used to create an “environmental response trust”.
Other AGs across the country have criticized these investigations. West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey has said,
“You cannot use the power of the office of the Attorney General to silence your critics.”
Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt and Alabama AG Luther Strange issued a joint press release stating,
“It is inappropriate for State Attorneys General to use the power of their office to attempt to silence core political speech on one of the major policy debates of our time.”
AG Jeff Landry of Louisiana said,
“It is one thing to use the legal system to pursue public policy outcomes; but it is quite another to use prosecutorial weapons to intimidate critics, silence free speech, or chill the robust exchange of ideas.”
In the end, it seems the only parties that may be breaking the law are those colluding AGs in their scheme to silence political opposition, while seeking funds for their preferred policy agenda. It is they who need to come clean.
Chris Horner is an attorney in Washington, D.C. who obtained the email records for the Energy & Environment Legal Institute. He is also a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The AG fantasy fueled by Oreskes Mrechants of Doubt claim that big oil behaved like big tobacco may be one of the things that finally breaks the back of wamunism.
The British surgeon general equivalent had published on the connection between smoking and lung disease (cancer, emphysema, COPD) in the early 1950s. By the 1970s when the US surgeon general proclaimed the same, the epidemiological and animal model data was overwhelming. Very little uncertainty. Tobacco companies continued to proclaim the opposite, and got nailed on their own internal documents showing they had known about the health problems for decades.
Here, we know that climate changes, that CO2 is a GHG, and that fossil fuel consumption is increasing CO2. But there is no observational evidence on exactly how much AGW results, or whether it is dangerous as opposed to beneficial. What can be proven is that the GCMs are wrong (pause, missing tropical troposphere hotspot, high ECS compared to observation), none of the projected warmunist outcomes have materialized (pause, accelerated SLR, vanishing summer Arctic ice), and that natural variation plays a large role on various scales (1920-1945 warming, 1946-1975 cooling, MWP, LIA). We also know that the debate is politicized, and warmunist solutions are very expensive (needing subsidies), do not work well (intermittency), and are irrelevant when China and India won’t play.
If Schneiderman tries to bring a case against Exxon, under New York shareholder disclosure lawhe will get his head handed to him. Liquid transportation fuels are indispensible, and CCGT produces 1/3 the CO2 of coal. Ever since Exxon moved big into natural gas, it has advocated for carbon taxes (Which hurt big coal up to three times more).
It woild be wonderful if Oreskes fantasy ‘sold’ to overzealous AGs resulted in court processes that exposed the whole thing for the fools errand it is.
Our mild warming is net beneficial now and far into the future, no, forever, even unto glaciation, which it will ameliorate, at least a bit. Our great greening would be miraculous were it not so predictable.
======================
So you feel that sea level rise of 1 m by 2100 is beneficial?
We need a sea level rise of 300m so I can take a leisurely stroll to the ocean. I’m not getting any younger.
Do I need a Sarc tag?
Besides over time the correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer was compelling, before the twentieth century lung cancer was a very rare disease …
… whereas the climate has changed all by itself since the year dot without human CO2 emissions, any correlation over time being very weak if not nonexistent.
this is truly shocking information! The corruption runs deep
As my Dad would say. We are free to do what we are told.
I would like to make a complaint! Can someone give me the contact number for the Minister for Twitter?
Oh, nice.
======
Honest, Officer, I never saw it coming.
=========
In 1980, after long consultation with some of America’s most senior nutrition scientists, the US government issued its first Dietary Guidelines. The guidelines shaped the diets of hundreds of millions of people. Doctors base their advice on them, food companies develop products to comply with them. Their influence extends beyond the US. In 1983, the UK government issued advice that closely followed the American example.
Advertisement
The most prominent recommendation of both governments was to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol (this was the first time that the public had been advised to eat less of something, rather than enough of everything). Consumers dutifully obeyed. We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine and vegetable oils, eggs with muesli, and milk with low-fat milk or orange juice. But instead of becoming healthier, we grew fatter and sicker
Where’s my cross of butter?
===============
At the NDP convention in Alberta the NDP Party leader, Thomas Mulclair was ousted but remains as interim party leader. A type of Coup by party activists?.
Same convention the Leap Manifesto passed but as a watered-down version. Maybe Canadians and others should take a good look at what happened in Alberta a few days ago.
Perhaps other party leaders should watch their backs?
350.org
Board includes:
Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Alberta, Greenpeace Canada and also on the Steering Committee of Tar Sands Solutions Network Canada along with Bill McKibben.
Naomi Klein
Bill McKibben
Jessy Tolkan, Currently focused on shifting the auto-industry in a more sustainable direction.
Also view the US 350.org Advisory Council and the 350.org International Advisory Council for Greenpeace and Rockefeller connections.
http://www.350.org/about/board
EV World, Oct.15, 2014
Jessy Tolkan
‘Advancing the Electric Car Revolution One Voting Consumer At a Time’
Scroll down to:
“By 2011, she was inside, meeting with President Obama to discuss the Keystone pipeline.”
http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?rssid=34358
When they get to the point of using ‘the law’ then we can all see that they have completely lost every element of any scientific debate.
I find some global warming over the last twenty years down the back of a filing cabinet in my office. Conveniently just in time for the great Paris jamboree – These people are full time, paid, professional liars. When their ‘scientific’ lies don’t work then they look to some liar Judge that will make their liar ‘science’ real. By ‘Law’.
I really don’t remember Einstein calling upon ‘tha law’ in order to silence his critics. Come to think of it, I don’t remember any real scientist calling upon the FBI.
It’s just another Cult. Nothing more.
If CO2 was proven to be beneficial by tomorrow morning then the Cult would move on to some other nonsense. Too many Sardines in some section of the ocean, too many marmosets in some set of trees, too many people on HK.
These people just cannot ever be placated. They will ‘find’ that life itself needs to be snubbed out if they are payed enough for promoting their whack job fantasies. Science Nein Danke. Fully paid up fools that would find significance in pretty much anything they were told to if their pension plan were assured.
See, they were right after all.
CAGW is real !!!
Colluding
Attorney
General
Witchhunters…
Not remarked upstairs is the fact that the attorneys general perpetrating these malfeasances are universally and exclusively politicians of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP). Those states’ attorneys general quoted as criticizing these actions are members of the Republican Party.
Never has a dichotomy been so cleanly cleft. The “reactionary” Republicans are proving to be the party of free speech while the “progressive” National Socialists are pushing suppression of public discourse by way of criminal prosecution.
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” –
Illustrated London News (ILN), 4/19/24
GK Chesterton
Note the year.
Nothing changes.
Looks like he may have been correct even back then.
“Climategate-like”? Does that mean that we will again have “Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct”?
So, CEI does what it needs to do. Chris Horner (from CEI) drops names. He wants you to put pressure on people. That is how his “think tanks” works.
CEI is under pressure to reveal their business connections with Exxon Mobil. Exxon is accused of knowing that their own scientists knew of the reality and dangers of AGW decades ago, but they did not make these risks clear to the public or their stakeholders, instead they financed CEI and other think tanks to sow doubt. That is the issue (making money as long as the scam functions).
Chris Horner is defending his business here by putting out a list of names you can rile against.
WUWT is for a part special interest reporting.
Wagen,
Lots of baseless accusations there.
I accuse you of being a paid troll. See how it works? Like you, I don’t need anything but my opinion.
So, who pays you? And don’t say “no one”, we know you’re paid. We know it just like you know that Exxon’s…
“…own scientists knew of the reality and dangers of AGW decades ago, but they did not make these risks clear to the public or their stakeholders, instead they financed CEI and other think tanks to sow doubt.”
So, what are the “dangers” of AGW? And who pays you?
Chris Horner works for the CEI. Why was this not made transparent above the line?
“All nd don’t say “no one””
No one pays me to post here. I expect the same scrutiny of you regarding people ABL
Ah, but Wagen, you made some unsupported assertions.
Now you don’t like it when someone else does the same thing to you.
Goose/gander. Pot/kettle.
Carrie says:
If Wagen is getting paid, he’s a lot smarter than you, because you aren’t getting paid to post here.
You may be right about that.
But that raises the same question about you, doesn’t it? ☺
Come now, y’all, what is this, middle school debate club? Address the matter at hand.
Wagen, your claim makes a few unsupportable assumptions: that Exxon agrees with you. That the secret knowledge accessible only to them (despite the IPCC existing since 1988) is so devastating and conclusive that they had to move to ban fossil fuels (despite the fact that doing so would cause 4-6 billion deaths within the year) and that the only reason they did not do so was because of greed.
The problems with this
-By their actions, clearly, they do not agree that climate change is dangerous and requires immediate action.
-The idea that they had some special information unknown to the United Nations for these past 28 years is absurd. It cannot be fraud by just not speaking up to support something with massive international support and exposure.
-The idea that a company must support a political action or face fraud charges is anathema to the concept of freedom or speech. Of all speech, political speech is the most protected and the most sacrosanct. Even if every last one of the other charges, despite the sheer madness that would entail, was true, supporting a political activity, ANY political activity, is still well within their right.
You are UnAmerican and should be ashamed of yourself.
Ben,
What did you not understand about “Exxon is accused of knowing that their own scientists knew of the reality and dangers of AGW decades ago, but they did not make these risks clear to the public or their stakeholders, instead they financed CEI and other think tanks to sow doubt.”?
The tobacco companies were sued along similar lines. The relevant information is openly available regarding the facts on Exxon. Just google it. You may disagree on whether the legal procedure is the right thing to do or not in this case.
This piece however should have been more upfront about the author’s affiliations, and not be added as an after-thought at the end.
We have the Wagner, Sherman, Clayton, SEC and and FTC act to stop business collusion, we need a similar set of laws to protect the public from NGOs and the Government. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing, and the government and NGOs can harm the public infinitely more than a company.
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54cbccf5e4b09f43359ade79/t/56e707961d07c0b8680bc92b/1457981337078/
BTW, Chris Horner does a great job in this documentary.
https://youtu.be/QowL2BiGK7o?t=23m10s
CEI got money from Exxon. Exxon under investigation that they knew AGW is true but paying outfits like CEI to sow doubt. Chris Horner dropping names. Fits the pattern.
Like the millions of others, my doubt over CAGW comes from the fact that the evidence for said theory has yet to be demonstrated. CEI has little to do with the fact that the minuscule warming of the last century can not be shown to be be only man made and not natural. Until this can be shown, no amount of politicking by any side will convince we millions otherwise.
It is very telling that you imagine our doubt comes from influence and not simply a lack of evidence.
Wagen
April 18, 2016 at 4:05 pm wrote:
“CEI got money from Exxon.”
So?
“Exxon under investigation that they knew AGW is true but paying outfits like CEI to sow doubt.”
NOBODY knows human-caused global warming/climate change is true (that’s what you mean, you are not talking about a mild warming so small it cannot yet be detected). So how can Exxon know something that no other human knows?
“Chris Horner dropping names. Fits the pattern.”
Not sure how that is relevant to anything.
Wagen got money from Mann. Mann under investigation because he knew AGW is minuscule and doesn’t matter, but he’s paying outfits like ‘realclimate’ to sow doubt. Wagen dropping names. Fits the pattern.
See what I did there? ☺
Except you don’t have any evidence to back up those claims. Massive difference.
There’s no evidence to back up the theory of AGW either. If there was it’d be out in the open for all to see, the scientists would want everyone to see and to understand (after all there’s the world to “save”). Instead… nothing. Not one scrap of evidence.
AGs often consult with outside groups when filing suits. This is much to do about nothing.
Wow!
Can you give us some examples?
I cannot give you examples, but in my view the so-called “collusion” is no big deal. The big deal is that this is is an attempt by AG’s to limit free speech and is thus an abuse of power. Public agents “collude” with private interests all the time. It is called “lobbying.” Or “politics.” It only becomes a big deal when it is illegal, as this appears to be.
Looks like colluding might be SOP for progressives and NGOs.
Things like scientists working on the taxpayer dime own their findings.
And the world’s taxpayers have no right to the data they paid for.
These lying climastrologists are not required to provide proof of their findings.
The liars can make up, hide data and remove any scientist or journal editor that fails to support 100%.
The whole thing sounds unconstitutional to me.
Like Mark Steyn says “Always pay close attention when someone in power tells you to shut up.”
They need to go after all those AG’s and the Green Mafia for RICO charges.
Reply
Nicholas Schroeder
April 18, 2016 at 3:53 pm wrote:
“Not really. The permanent government continues no matter the party or incumbent.”
No, it doesn’t. Let’s see if the “permanent government” continues after Trump is elected. I have a feeling it won’t be “business as usual”. I also have a feeling that is the reason Trump will win.
“W was just as bad.”
A ridiculous statement. You obviously don’t know what you are talking about.
What makes this a bombshell? This is corrupt, political, police state business as usual.
Tax payers have been ripped off for $$Billions by an increasing list of financially bankrupt “clean ” companies and the response is some USA AG’s supporting more of it ? WTF ?
Why would the USA government be supporting a Spanish company to the tune of nearly $$ 3 Billion dollars ? Abengoa has been on the verge of bankruptcy with over $$10 Billion in debts . If it goes down it will be the largest bankruptcy in Spanish history and we have USA AG’s cheerleading a sector that even with all the tax payer backing is incapable of remaining viable . Why would those AG’s be lobbying for an industry in free fall ?
Amber commented: “…. Why would those AG’s be lobbying for an industry in free fall ?…”
Because they’re useful idiots? For the same reason their President keeps bellowing about AGW being the most pressing problem for his administration and the people continually put it last?
Obama and Bergoglio = green isis