Conservatives Have a New Bogeyman: Critical Energy Theory

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://newrepublic.com/article/164641/conservatives-new-bogeyman-critical-energy-theory

No paywall
https://archive.ph/2I7MB

“This morning at the ALEC Committee meetings,” Jason Isaac, director of the Koch-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation, wrote last Friday morning, “you’ll have the opportunity to push back against woke financial institutions that are colluding against American energy producers.” The email—obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, and first reported by CMD investigative journalist Alex Kotch—offers a window into a rapidly congealing strategy among Republican state-level officials: declaring war on “critical energy theory” within the financial sector.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, held its States and Nation Policy Summit in San Diego last week. The event—attended by a mix of state legislators and representatives from the private sector—featured spirited discussions about a potential Constitutional Convention, as well as lots of excitement about Virginia Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s attempt to galvanize voters around “critical race theory,” the once-obscure academic subfield that right-wingers now regularly rant about, claiming that CRT has infected the K-12 curriculum and that teaching students accurate facts about slavery and segregation is somehow unfair to white people.

Now ALEC seems gearing up for a similar move on energy policy. The group’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, which met on Friday, voted to back two pieces of model legislation that portray climate policy—even climate policy that doesn’t exist yet—as unfairly discriminating against fossil fuel companies. The ​“Resolution Opposing Securities and Exchange Commission and White House Mandates on Climate-Related Financial Matters” encourages states to take up legal challenges against forthcoming rules from federal financial regulators around climate risk and disclosures, potentially aiming to trigger a similar wave of lawsuits from states that followed the Clean Power Plan during the Obama administration. This follows a letter sent to the “U.S. Banking Industry” by state treasurers, plus a comptroller and auditor, from 16 extraction-heavy, Republican-controlled states just before Thanksgiving, pledging “collective action” against “reckless attacks on law-abiding energy companies.”

The “Energy Discrimination Elimination Act,” voted through unanimously on Friday, directs states to compile a list of entities that are supposedly boycotting fossil fuel companies, explicitly citing banks that are “increasingly denying financing to creditworthy fossil energy companies solely for the purpose of decarbonizing their lending portfolios and marketing their environmental credentials”; institutional investors that are “divesting from fossil energy companies and pressuring corporations to commit to the goal of the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050”; and large investments that are “colluding to force energy companies to cannibalize their existing businesses.”

*snip*

[TheRealNorth]

1. They either made that up....

Or had to dig deep to find some academic article.

And if banks are deciding not to extend credit to a company because they think the company is working in a sector that will be shrinking in the future, that is called the market and capitalism, which is what I thought these people stood for.

I mean, these companies could go public and sell stock.

[Caliman73]

8. When you are shameless, anything is possible...

And if banks are deciding not to extend credit to a company because they think the company is working in a sector that will be shrinking in the future, that is called the market and capitalism, which is what I thought these people stood for.

They stand only for what will make them profit. They are also quietly moving in to take over renewable energy producers. Once they corner that market, you might see some shift in their position on fossil fuels.

[mopinko]

2. cuz of course they are.

the invisible hand of the market for me, but not for thee.

[dalton99a]

3. NEXT: Critical Energy Theory caused Texas electric grid blackouts

[Wounded Bear]

4. Mashing their buzzwords...maybe they're running out of them...

[dalton99a]

7. Critical Asshole Theory

with Trump as chief proponent

[4Q2u2]

5. Heading back to the 50's

AH yes the Pukes will not be happy until we roll back to the 50's.
I think we are looking at the wrong dates. We mistakenly think 1950's. I am not so sure the heading back to the 1850's is not their goal.
Robber Barons, The Caning of Senator Sumner, and the The Crédit Mobilier Scandal and all the unfettered Murican Glory.

[uponit7771]

6. They're defining the messaging (even if they have to make it up) they're going to flood mediums with

... it and our response has to be hard hitting this is a stupid lie

[Caliman73]

9. Those poor, poor fossil fuel companies...

Are they going to start calling themselves Fossil Fuel Companies of Color? I mean they already seem to be a "protected class" given the amount of subsidies they get at taxpayer expense.

They are being DISCRIMINATED against!! Oh no, and JUST BECAUSE they produce something that is altering the climate of the planet so that it threatens the survival of humans and other life on the planet. I mean, that is EXACTLY like Jim Crow, or the Chinese Exclusion Acts or Operation Wetback. Just like them!!