A Siegel (via Stoller) reports:

According to Washington Post reporting, the coal industry is using an Astroturf organization, the Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, to wage a $35 million dollar effort to gain traction in the 2008 Presidential campaign for a more polluting future for America and the Globe....

ABEC is paying people to be at campaign events, in human billboards, and giving out leaflets at events. They have sponsored Presidential debates (here also).  They even had Santas giving out “Clean Coal” (reminder: that is ’somewhat less dirty coal’) at the Metro stations by the US Congress.

I've been encountering these ABEC folks around the web in my work to stop mountaintop removal coal mining at IloveMountains.org.

If $35 million in astroturf money isn't enough to convince you that 2008 is a defining year for coal, maybe their incredibly tactless website will:

[The ABEC website features an] array of young people, many of whom appear to be under 10 years of age, enlighten visitors about the happy, hunky-dory world of coal. Alicia sets down her book bag to explain how coal and environmentalism go hand in hand, while young Sarah tells how we have more energy in the form of coal than the Middle East has in oil. “I’m doing my homework,” she says. “You do yours too.”

You can "do your homework" by checking out the high cost of coal or discovering your power company's connection to mountaintop removal coal. If you like what you see, please join us in the fight.

$35 million is a lot of money, but not enough, perhaps, if you're on the wrong side of history.

This is just silly, and indicative of why Detroit is an empty shell of what it once was.

Rolling out the new Corvette at the Detroit auto show, chief engineer Tadge Juechter comments on the new energy bill by lamenting that "High-performance vehicles such as this may actually be legislated out of existence."

Preposterous, when, for the same amount of cash as a new Corvette, you can buy this all electric roadster, which, glad to say, is made in America.

But it's not made in Detroit.

For the past eighteen months or so, I've been working with the talented staff over at Appalachian Voices on the iLoveMountains.org campaign, using the web to raise awareness of the national tragedy that is mountaintop removal coal mining.

We've just launched a new webtool called My Connection that's worth checking out.

Ever think that mountaintop removal coal mining is just a regional issue, only effecting the people of Appalachia?

My Connection allows you to type in your ZIP code and find out if your utility sells electricity produced with coal mined from mountaintops in Appalachia.

Chances are, it does. No matter where we live, we're all connected. And that means we all have a responsibility to end mountaintop removal coal mining.

So check it out, and add your voice to the more than 23,000 Americans who have already pledged to end mountaintop removal.

Technorati Tags: global warming, energy, Google Earth, environment, conservation,

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Reasons to be relieved #233:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Sen. Barbara Boxer on Thursday promised major policy shifts on global warming, air quality and toxic-waste cleanup as she prepares to head the U.S. Senate's environmental committee.

''Time is running out, and we need to move forward on this,'' Boxer said of global warming during a conference call with reporters. ''The states are beginning to take steps, and we need to take steps as well.''

Boxer's elevation to chairwoman of the Senate Environmental Public Works Committee comes as the Democrats return to power in the Senate. It also marks a dramatic shift in ideology for the panel.

The California Democrat is one of the Senate's most liberal members and replaces one of the most conservative senators, Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Inhofe had blocked bills seeking to cut the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming, calling the issue ''the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people.''

Environmentalists were overjoyed at the change.

''That's like a tsunami hit the committee,'' said Karen Steuer, who heads government affairs at the National Environmental Trust, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. ''You can't find two members or people more ideologically different.'...

On global warming, Boxer said she would model federal legislation after a California law signed this summer by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That law imposes the first statewide cap on greenhouse gases and seeks to cut California's emissions by 25 percent, dropping them to 1990 levels by 2020.

A top environmental aide at the White House signaled Thursday that the administration would work with Boxer.

It's a long way to go to pass a bill that is effective enough, of course. But at least now we can have a Congress that understands that the only great hoax that has been perpetrated on the American people in regards to global warming has been Inhofe himself.