Last week, at least 19 U.S. Senators who understand the need to clear the PR pollution that continues to block overdue climate policy action spoke out on the Senate floor in support of the Senate Web of Denial Resolution calling out the destructive forces of fossil fuel industry-funded climate denial.
Championed by Senators Whitehouse, Markey, Schatz, Boxer, Merkley, Warren, Sanders, and Franken, the resolution condemns what they are calling the #WebOfDenial – “interconnected groups – funded by the Koch brothers, major fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal, identity-scrubbing groups like Donors Trust and Donors Capital, and their allies – developed and executed a massive campaign to deceive the public about climate change to halt climate action and protect their bottom lines.”
Joined in the House of Representatives by Congressman Ted Lieu (D- CA), these champions for climate action and accountability in the Senate are calling out the use of think tanks and denier-for-hire front groups to create doubt about climate science.
According to a press release issued last week morning, the resolution condemns the “efforts of corporations and groups to mislead the public about the harmful effects of tobacco, lead, and climate. The resolution also urges fossil fuel corporations and their allies to cooperate with investigations into their climate-related activities.”
As DeSmog, ExxonSecrets, the Climate Investigations Center, and others have documented repeatedly over the past decade, the oil and coal industries and their friends have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on an immoral and potentially fraudulent campaign to deceive the public about the scientific consensus on manmade global warming and the need for urgent action to curtail fossil fuel pollution.
Just last week, DeSmog published the latest round of Exxon’s funding of climate denial groups still peddling doubt, bringing the total known funding from Exxon to nearly $34 million over two decades. Add to that the nearly $90 million pumped into the denial machine by the Koch Family Foundations, as well as the largesse emanating from the dark money ATM, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund.
Think tanks and front groups involved in climate denial include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity, the Heartland Institute and many more.
Champions in the U.S. Congress have now put the denial machine on notice with this resolution and a series of speeches that took place last week on the Senate floor.
• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse spoke to close out the #WebOfDenial action. He excoriated the #WebOfDenial’s efforts to “exploit our Founding Fathers… Franklin, Madison and Jefferson,” as well as denial efforts to co-opt the names of American heroes, including George C. Marshall, Lord Acton and John Locke.
Whitehouse also went into detail on the Franklin Center for Government and Public Policy, and its funding from Charles G. Koch Foundation, Donors Trust, Searle and Bradley foundations, among others.
“If you look at what’s going on at the Franklin Center, you see Koch people, Koch money and Koch buddies.”
(Sen. Whitehouse referenced DeSmog and our research into climate denial repeatedly in his speeches tonight and last night, for which we’re grateful.)
Whitehouse next went into detail on the James Madison Institute and its common funding sources with Franklin Center and the “Unabomber group Heartland Institute” and mentioned the John Locke Institute and John Locke Foundation and the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) and the Hoover Institution and Manhattan Institute. He also covered the State Policy Network and Art Pope and American Enterprise Institute and the Thomas Jefferson Institute.
“Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Locke… these are great names put on the front of very shady, Koch-funded front groups in the #WebOfDenial. And the organizations share several common features. First, they all propagate what by any reasonable scientific standard is preposterous nonsense, and masquerade it as science and independent opinion. Second, they all get massive funding from fossil fuel interests, and line up always, obediently, with those interests. Third, they interlock. The interlocking is almost too complicated to track, in staff, in board members, in funding sources. But it all traces back to fossil fuel money. And, of course, they all mask themselves behind the names of great men from history who would recoil to discover their names and reputations being put to such discreditable use.”
Sen. Whitehouse closed by thanking his Senate colleagues for joining him in the #WebOfDenial action, including Harry Reid, Ben Cardin, Chris Coons, Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley, Barbara Boxer, Dick Durbin, Brian Schatz, Al Frankin, Martin Heinrich, Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Gary Peters, Dick Blumenthal, and Ed Markey.
• Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) spoke about Exxon’s advanced research into climate change decades ago, relating many of the facts revealed by investigative journalists at Inside Climate News in "Exxon: The Road Not Taken." Sen. Markey talked about the role of the George C. Marshall Institute, which recently morphed into the CO2 Coalition, and the leadership that George C. Marshall would have displayed on climate action.
Markey also talked about the Global Climate Coalition, and its historical role of attacking the United Nations IPCC and climate science. Markey called out the funding by the Koch Brothers, Exxon and Peabody coal for the #WebOfDenial. “The Koch Brothers have lied to the American people for decades about climate change. They also lied to their own employees.”
He also talked about Donald Trump's climate denial. And he talked about the Acton Institute, the Lexington Institute, and the dark money ATM, Donors Trust.
• Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) spoke about the role of ExxonMobil in funding the #WebOfDenial, and its own internal preparations for climate change. He spoke about the impacts of climate change on Connecticut that is “causing rising tides, destroying homes, changing literally the nature of our shoreline and impacting our quality of life.” Sen. Blumenthal mentioned the Koch group Americans For Prosperity, and also focused on the “covert efforts to sabotage science” led by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
• Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) spoke about the Koch brothers' role in funding the #WebOfDenial, calling out Charles and David Koch. “Much of their wealth is funneled into activist groups that produce questionable information and the spin necessary to support their own interests. The web of denial they have created is a threat to sound, science-based decisionmaking.” Sen. Peters talked about the coal petcoke pollution harming the health of Detroit, Michigan residents and environmental justice issues.
• Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) spoke about the national security implications of climate change and the need to hold the #WebOfDenial and its corporate funders accountable for misleading the public and investors. “It is our responsibility to believe, and not deny,” Reed said.
• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spoke about the Competitive Enterprise Institute and its lengthy history of defending the tobacco industry, in addition to its role in the #WebOfDenial. “If this sounds like Déjà vu that’s because it is. CEI and other front groups are using the same playbook, the same tactics, to deny CC that they used to deny the link between tobacco use and fatal disease. CEI is now on a new mission to confuse and mislead the public on climate change. It is financing and directing ad hoc groups like the so-called Cooler Heads Coalition…”
Sen. Shaheen also spoke about the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, and its funding from Arch Coal, Peabody Energy and other coal interests, as well as the direct funding to E&E Legal's Chris Horner by Alpha Natural Resources. Shaheen also discussed the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic.
• Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) spoke about the American Legislative Exchange Council and its role in the #WebOfDenial. He also covered the fact that climate change has already had an impact on his home state of New Mexico.
• Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) spoke about the Heritage Foundation, which he said has been “a mouthpiece for climate denial.” He called out the “incredibly and deliberately irresponsible way” that Heritage scholars — including Ben Lieberman whose work Sen. Franken quoted — have attempted to minimize the threat of global warming. “It's not only irresponsible but frankly dangerous to the welfare of people around the world.”
“The Heritage Foundation is deliberate and unwavering in its fraud and deceit,” Franken said. He went on to describe the funding from Exxon and Koch to the Heritage Foundation over the years.
“In order to protect their bottom line, they set out to misinform the public. That's what they do for a living. And Heritage and many other similar organizations are helping them to spread their falsehoods. That’s what they do at Heritage for a living. The money paid to Heritage goes to supposed experts whose jobs are to release thousands of bogus reports about climate change. These experts are not climate scientists, they are lawyers and economists serving as puppets for the fossil fuel industry.”
• Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) spoke about the denial efforts of the Heartland Institute and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
• Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) spoke about the overlap of tobacco industry attacks on science and the “fossil industrial complex” that has similarly attacked climate science to evade accountability. He also discussed the Heritage Foundation, Art Pope, Cato Institute and the forged letter scandal orchestrated by Bonner and Associates for the Hawthorn Group and its coal industry client ACCCE. Merkley highlighted the work of Justin Farrell from Yale and the money flows from Donors Trust and the Koch Brothers. “A powerful, moneyed interest has spun a web of deceit,” Merkley said.
“We know that these groups are backed by special interests. All we have to do is follow the money.” He mentioned the more than $30 million from ExxonMobil, and the denial funding from Peabody Energy revealed in its bankruptcy fillings. Merkley saved special mention for the Koch Brothers. “But as much as the fossil fuel companies have contributed to these efforts over the years, the titles of the mastermind and the kingpins of climate science denial — those titles rest with Charles and David Koch.”
• Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) spoke about the Mercatus Center, which he said “should be called the Koch Center” due to its massive Koch funding. He discussed the connections to the tobacco industry's attacks on tobacco science and the overlap with the Koch-funded Mercatus Center.
• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke about the Virginia Institute for Public Policy and the CO2 Coalition and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewarship of Creation, and mentioned DeSmogBlog's research in his #WebOfDenial speech. He also talked about the funding from Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust to denier organizations.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) spoke about the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), Willie Soon, and Christopher Monckton's Hitler Youth outrage and claims to have a cure for AIDS, and other “completely made up” Monckton-isms.
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