NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda.
Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate Power until 2023, a spokesperson for Climate Power previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
AFPM launched its seven-figure ad campaign designed to highlight and criticize the administration’s EV policies on Tuesday. The ads, which describe Biden’s policies as an EV mandate, are airing in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, Montana and Washington, D.C.
Climate Power’s warning letter to local affiliates states that the broadcasters “must remove these ads from the air immediately” because “there is no pending federal ‘car ban,’ and to claim otherwise is patently false and intentionally misleading.” The letter suggests that AFPM’s ads could be in violation of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules, and instructs the broadcasters to contact Climate Power — an Internal Revenue Service-recognized 501(c)4 that is spending more than $80 million to tout Biden’s climate policies ahead of the 2024 presidential election — to confirm that the ads are no longer running on their stations. (RELATED: Left-Wing Billionaire’s Nonprofit Is Pushing A TikTok Campaign Against American Energy)
Climate Power strongly disputes that the Biden administration is imposing EV mandates, but the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed tailpipe emissions standards would effectively require 67% of all light-duty vehicles sold after model year 2032 to be electric, according to the agency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also proposed its own aggressive update to fuel economy standards that would force manufacturers to substantially increase the fuel efficiencies of their fleets to an extent that effectively makes the policy an “EV mandate,” Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Energy Research Dan Kish previously told the DCNF.
“These ads are filled with lies meant to scare Americans about a ‘car ban’ that doesn’t exist – and they should be taken off the air,” Climate Power Executive Director Lori Lodes said in a Tuesday statement. “The Biden administration isn’t banning gas-powered cars or appliances – they’re fighting against corporate polluters to make our air and water cleaner and give Americans more affordable alternatives to fossil fuel. Big Oil knows that and is intentionally misleading Americans to protect their obscene profits.”
Since 2021, the Berger Action Fund, a 501(c)4 affiliated with Wyss, has given about $40 million to the Fund for a Better Future, a grantmaking organization that shells out funds to support a wide range of left-of-center causes and organizations, according to Politico. The Berger Action Fund has also given more than $77 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a “dark money” organization managed by the for-profit consultancy Arabella Advisors that does not have to disclose its donors, since 2021.
Because Wyss is a Swiss citizen, he is not allowed by law to directly donate to American political candidates or political committees, but the activities of his nonprofit and associated organizations have allowed him to quietly become one of the most influential individual donors in American politics today, according to The Associated Press.
In May 2021, Americans for Public Trust — a government watchdog and transparency group — filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Wyss, his nonprofits and affiliated organizations have “violated fundamental compliance and transparency rules” governing political spending by foreign nationals.
Climate Power did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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Lori Lodes… Sorry I misread that name.
News Flash! Oz to run its EVs on coal fired Chinese solar panels in future-
“Extreme competition:” QCells calls it quits in Australia as solar module prices plunge – One Step Off The Grid
Well assuming you can charge them during the day of course.
On an average good sunny day, Australia has a huge excess of rooftop solar electricity that is not of the right frequency and if used taxes the remaining synchronous capacity.
Why are more panels being sold to a saturated market?
Geoff S
Well it’s Catch22 for Oz power bill payers as the transition costs skyrocket and the Commies keep dumping solar panels to please Beijing masters with production figures. As the cost per kWhr rises with Oz bills you can’t afford to be left behind your neighbours with solar trying to squeeze all possible useage into the solar duck curve. Think pool pump electric storage HWS airconditioning the home etc and Devil take the hindmost (largely struggletown and renters while the homeless don’t matter)
You have to admit once the national psyche was sold on free energy from the sun who wants to be a party pooper and question Santa or the Easter Bunny? Besides you can bask in saving the planet and if you’ve got plenty you can even chuck in an uneconomic battery for more feelgood.
Climate Power is lying to the public and has been doing so for many years.
Telling The People they live in a free country by those in ‘power’ is the biggest lie at all.
Slavery has never been abolished it just changed the way it looks. Things like Direct Taxation are examples of that structure. But by telling you it’s your ‘fair share’ it feels so much better. Meanwhile it gives those in command dictatorial power over the people.
The open U.S./Mexico border has aided human trafficking. Crickets from the general media despite the disappearance of tens of thousands of women and children.
Have just arrived in my little coffee shop.
Checking on Google map I’ve driven 13 miles along a main road in North Cambridgeshire (mostly the A47 Peterborough Kings Lynn Norwich) weekday rush-hour time and this morning, did a quick ‘survey’.
I counted all the small ‘personal’ vehicles that passed by on the other side of the road = cars, SUV, pickups and small vans. There were quite a few large vans and trucks, I didn’t count them but maybe 25% of all traffic.
Anyway, I counted up 249 vehicles that count easily could/should have been ‘electric’ and 8 (eight out of two hundred and forty none) of them were.
trufax
Isn’t the Blackthorn amazing, totally bleak black boring dead nothingness a week ago and now mountains of dazzling white flowers – how do they know to do that?
That’s why I go exploring – to see things like that and not to count cars. ‘Counting things’ is a habit livestock farmers all have
haha *none.
Is my computer trying to say something here
i.e. should I just have ’rounded down’
I wonder if Hansjorg Wyss is aware of all the activities funded by his philanthropy? I doubt that billionaire philanthropists generally spare the time to personally oversee all of their empire.
Of course, it is quite likely he may indeed be a raving climatist with low standards of political discourse, but perhaps somebody should write to him just to make sure.
“”Critical Of Biden’s EV Mandate””
Does Biden even know what it is?
Biden can be lucid when the drugs are working.
It is vital for people with commitment to a sane energy future to act as these authors are. Join in the public and private, lawful protest and make your voices heard to your best effort. Geoff S
Climate Power is being disingenuous. The word “ban” is being used as a rhetorical device, and they know it. Coal was never “banned” either, but the War On Coal had the desired effect, and it was pretty much the same as banning it.
it was pretty much the same as banning it.
They use laws and regulations that have the same result as banning something without outright banning it, so they can claim “we’re not banning it!”
Elon Musk does not comprehend that his Tesla’s are 100% made from crude oil !
From the tires, insulation, electronic components, etc., are 100% made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
FURTHER, all the parts and components of EVERY electricity generation system (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar) are also made from the oil derivatives manufactured from oil !
Electricity came AFTER the discovery of oil 200 years ago.
Everything that needs electricity is made from crude oil, from computers, electronics, X-Ray machines, etc.
Before the 1800’s, and before the discovery of oil, we had NO crude oil and obviously NO products and NO electricity and NO Tesla’s !!
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the motive here but a Swiss guy looking to help out and support the people who want to dictate to us ….. hmmmm watch out for gold (and art) shipments to Switzerland 😉
As for Lori Lodes and her band of misinformation defenders – fingers crossed that the Streisand effect (or similar) kicks in. When government bodies and their paid shills are acting as car salesmen most people have to be immediately suspicious.
Story tip
https://wyofile.com/climate-change-denial-heats-up-at-wyoming-capitol/
Climate change denial heats up at Wyoming Capitol
A group known for promoting misleading information about climate change won the attention — and hearts — of many Wyoming lawmakers this week.
by Mike Koshmrl and Dustin Bleizeffer
February 15, 2024
Purported experts invited to testify, and other speakers, including each lawmaker who spoke, expressed either disbelief that climate change was happening, or a belief that it is inconsequential, even beneficial.
Flanking Steinmetz in the Wyoming Capitol extension building auditorium were four members of the Senate Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee: Sens. Dan Laursen (R-Powell), John Kolb (R-Rock Springs), Tim French (R-Powell) and Bob Ide (R-Casper).
They nodded and smiled as they listened to presentations from speakers brought in from the CO2 Coalition. The group touted its theory — discredited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other climate scientists — that loading more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will not tip the planet’s climate into unlivable conditions.
William Happer, a physicist and co-founder of the CO2 Coalition, told lawmakers and attendees that those who believe climate science have been brainwashed.
“I don’t know how you deprogram people from a cult,” Happer said, “it’s really sort of a cult.”
end excerpt
So how is this any different that Tides Canada funneling huge amounts of cash from US trust funds into Canada to obstruct Canadian energy and infrastructure projects?