Secretive Group (ALEC) Calls for 'Guerrilla Warfare' on EPA

[n2doc]

Aliya Haq, a water and climate policy advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a clandestine network of corporations and conservative state lawmakers, had its annual "policy summit" last week in Washington, D.C. The group held a special session to discuss upcoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) carbon-pollution standards for power plants. According to reports, ALEC members and industry lawyers encouraged state legislators to limit their states' cooperation with EPA, and even to engage in "guerrilla warfare" to weaken the agency's ability to reduce carbon pollution.

Participants in the closed-door ALEC Environment Task Force meeting at the summit also discussed two draft resolutions to obstruct EPA's carbon pollution standards. InsideEPA reported that ALEC had voted to approve the two model resolutions. These resolutions, when introduced by ALEC members in state legislatures next year, will bear no mark of the corporations that designed them in the ALEC Task Force.

While it is known that American Electric Power chairs that ALEC task force, the current list of corporate members is secret. However, thanks to leaked internal ALEC documents, environmental advocates know the 2011 corporate member participants. They include American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), American Electric Power Company, American Gas Association, American Petroleum Institute, BP, Duke Energy Corporation, Edison Electric Institute, Exxon Mobil Corporation and Peabody Energy.

ALEC claims it is increasing its transparency, but old habits die hard (if they die at all). Several reporters were refused entry into the conference, including Dana Milbank of The Washington Post and Andy Kroll of Mother Jones. A few handpicked media outlets were allowed to attend the large plenary sessions, but not the task force meetings between lawmakers and corporations.

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http://www.livescience.com/41928-warfare-against-pollution-standards.html?cmpid=514645

[okaawhatever]

1. Past pressure on ALEC got 60 companies to withdraw support or resign membership. Time to

fight again. Google and a few other computer companies have recently joined. I know there's a stop alec website. Does anyone know of a group fighting ALEC?