"The Empowerment Alliance" - Another "Grassroots" Gas Campaign Full Of Dark Money & GOP Operatives

[hatrack]

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Amid the crescendo of calls for climate action and rising rage directed at the fossil fuel industry, petroleum producers and their allies are engaging in an aggressive promotional push focused on natural gas. The same month that the American Petroleum Institute (API) started running ads emphasizing gas’s role in reducing carbon emissions, a new dark money group has launched under the patriotic guise of promoting “America’s energy independence” by promoting, you guessed it, natural gas.

That group, called The Empowerment Alliance (TEA), is a registered 501(c)4 that does not disclose its donors (and is not required to under law). TEA launched on September 30 with a news release filled with natural gas industry talking points and attacks on the Green New Deal. The organization describes natural gas as “essential to our shared prosperity” in terms of jobs, national security, energy costs, and even air quality, while the Green New Deal is labeled as “radical and unachievable” and a “risky tax scheme.”

This anonymously funded organization, from its leaders to its messaging, is part of a broader chorus of misleading talking points that goes beyond the “natural gas and oil” industry (as the API ads say) to conservative media pundits and top strategists and officials within the Trump administration and the GOP.

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TEA says it intends to “engage the American people in an open and honest dialogue” and decries the “billionaire mega donors” and “deep pockets” supporting policies to curb fossil fuel production. Yet the organization is notably opaque about its own funding sources and donors. TEA explicitly states its “policy is to not disclose its donors to the general public.” It also clarifies that there are no limits on donation amounts “by an individual, corporation, union, or trade association.” In other words, unlimited dark money is welcome. Holt explained to Politico that the group’s donors are kept secret to protect them from opposition and protesters. And as E&E News reported, Holt also claimed donors feared safety risks from anti-fossil fuel activists, or as he called them — “eco-terrorists”: “Because of violence and trespassing and other criminal behavior, the Empowerment Alliance is going to protect its donors from that kind of risk,” he said. “We are offering donors this protection out of the concern that we would have should they come forward and the scrutiny of some of these eco-terrorists.”

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/10/22/empowerment-alliance-dark-money-natural-gas-industry