House GOP Document Traced Back to Coal Majors

by Emily Gertz · 2009-06-19 19:24:00 UTC
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Grist's Kate Sheppard has stuck with the story she broke yesterday, regarding an "anti–climate bill document created by coal lobby." It's being circulated by the House GOP as part of an effort to derail the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill.

Map illustrationThe document, a map of the nation, purports to "highlight how the Democrats’ National Energy Tax will make it more expensive for rural Americans to fertilize the crops, put fuel in the tractor and food on the table."

By examining the document's digital properties, Grist has been able to determine a chain of creation and editing extending back to 1998, intersecting with the National Mining Association, a trade group; Peabody Coal, the world's biggest coal producer; and another industry behemoth named Arch Coal. (Arch Coal has denied any involvement in the document.)

NMA doesn't deny involvement in the doc; in fact, as Kate discovered, it's got the same map up on its own web site. But "the fine print at the bottom of the National Mining Association’s version of the PowerPoint document," unlike the map circulating on Capitol Hill, "includes an extra page of data. At the bottom of that page is a note that says the document does not accurately reflect the Waxman-Markey legislation as it currently stands." [Emphasis mine.]

It's certainly not rare that industry associations feed talking points to legislators willing to go to bed with them bat for them.

And this isn't the first time that House GOP legislators and their allies have used ginned-up numbers in opposition the Waxman-Markey bill -- as one-time GOP influencer Newt Gingrich tried to do at an April committee hearing on the bill.

What seems unique this time around is that the ultimate provenance of the talking points wasn't scrubbed away.

Emily Gertz
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