Digging into Big Coal Climate Connections

Coal and Related Carbon Resources / Related Environmental Issues

Date posted: 09/30/15

Michael Halpern reports that the group that has abused open records laws to harass climate scientists across the United States is the same organization behind the North Carolina ban on using sea-level science to inform coastal planning? The institution attacking renewable energy targets? These are all activities of the innocuous-sounding Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E and E Legal). Virginia-based attorney Chris Horner serves as a senior fellow at E and E Legal, formerly known as the American Tradition Institute, and is connected to a number of other organizations that have sought to undermine public understanding of climate science. Now, thanks to a scoop by Lee Fang at The Intercept, we now know where some of his money comes from. Many have known for years that privately funded organizations have attacked climate scientists, both in the U.S. and the U.K., to the extent that they had to set up a legal defence fund. But we have known little about where their money comes from, beyond efforts to connect the dots between different groups. Now, the bankruptcy filings of Alpha Natural Resources, a large Virginia-based coal company, provide a rare window into the list of political and advocacy organizations the company has funded. According to the filing, Alpha provided money not only to groups with ties to Horner, but also to Horner personally. Other recipients include the Heartland Institute, which compared climate scientists to the Unabomber, the American Legislative Exchange Council and numerous others. In the U.S., companies are usually not required to disclose this kind of spending, so public scrutiny is grossly inadequate. Trade associations and corporate front groups like E&E Legal are willing to do the dirty work that companies do not want to associate.