The Dirty Underbelly of Clean Line Energy Partners

Ever heard the idiom "qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent."  Probably not, but you must be familiar with its English translation, "when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."  Clean Line has recently exposed its dirty underbelly by publicly scratching its fleas.

Clean Line is now a proud "member" of the Consumers Energy Alliance (#25 under "Energy Providers and Suppliers").

What is the Consumers Energy Alliance?  According to SourceWatch:

The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) is a nonprofit organization and a front group for the energy industry that opposes political efforts to regulate carbon standards while advancing deep water and land-based drilling for oil and methane gas. The CEA supports lifting moratoria on offshore and land-based oil and natural gas drilling, encourages the creation and expansion of petroleum refineries and easing the permitting process for drilling. The group also says it supports energy conservation. CEO portrays itself as seeking to ensure a "proper balance" between traditional non-renewable and extractive energy sources and alternative energy sources. The group also supports construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

According to Salon.com, which obtained over 300 emails of personal messages between lobbyists and Canadian officials, the CEA is part of a sophisticated public affairs strategy designed to manipulate the U.S. political system by deluging the media with messaging favorable to the tar-sands industry; to persuade key state and federal legislators to act in the extractive industries' favor; and to defeat any attempt to regulate the carbon emissions emanating from gasoline and diesel used by U.S. vehicles.

So, the CEA is a well-known front group for the fossil fuel industry?  But, wait a tick, I thought Clean Line was all about "clean" energy and shutting down the fossil fuel industry?  Money makes strange bedfellows.

What is a front group?

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned. The front group is perhaps the most easily recognized use of the third party technique. For example, Rick Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) claims that its mission is to defend the rights of consumers to choose to eat, drink and smoke as they please. In reality, CCF is a front group for the tobacco, restaurant and alcoholic beverage industries, which provide all or most of its funding.

Of course, not all organizations engaged in manipulative efforts to shape public opinion can be classified as "front groups." For example, the now-defunct Tobacco Institute was highly deceptive, but it didn't hide the fact that it represented the tobacco industry. There are also degrees of concealment. The Global Climate Coalition, for example, didn't hide the fact that its funding came from oil and coal companies, but nevertheless its name alone is sufficiently misleading that it can reasonably be considered a front group.

The shadowy way front groups operate makes it difficult to know whether a seemingly independent grassroots is actually representing some other entity. Thus, citizen smokers' rights groups and organizations of bartenders or restaurant workers working against smoking bans are sometimes characterized as front groups for the tobacco industry, but it is possible that some of these groups are self-initiated (although the tobacco industry has been known to use restaurant groups as fronts for its own interests).

Front groups are formed and managed by well-paid public relations/lobbying firms.  They are paid for by the industry.  The CEA is managed by HBW Resources.  The group has been "conducting a grassroots operation" in "target states" that would "generate significant opposition to discriminatory low carbon fuels standards" that were created to address climate change.

The term "grassroots" means ordinary people with no financial interest in the proposal at hand.  CEA is not a grassroots organization.  It is funded and directed by the corporations that pay HBW to run it.

But now the CEA  has a new "initiative" to support Clean Line Energy Partners.  The "initiative" supports Clean Line's Plains & Eastern Clean Line.

“Unfortunately, virtually all energy projects face at least some level of opposition. But, in most cases, the opposition comes from the vocal few who stand in the way of the silent majority who see these necessary projects providing tremendous job and economic development opportunities on many levels. The EDJ Alliance will help taxpayers, energy consumers, landowners and businesses to voice their opinion to elected officials so that they embrace the opportunities associated with energy development.”

Vocal few?  Silent majority?  You mean landowners and consumers who object to the Plains & Eastern project vs. Clean Line Energy Partners?  CLEP is hardly silent (paid mouthpieces like HBW stand in evidence) and it's certainly not any kind of "majority" in Arkansas.  In addition, CEA does not represent any actual "consumers" or other "grassroots" interests.  It simply pretends to speak for them.

Like this:

Support landowners in Arkansas and Oklahoma!  Support energy infrastructure!  Support the Plains & Eastern Clean Line!

We need your help!

America's energy infrastructure needs your help!  Lobbying efforts at the white house level have inhibited the passage of an energy infrastructure project beneficial to citizens and landowners in Arkansas and Oklahoma!

........

Support energy infrastructure, land owners, and the Plains and Eastern Clean Line project by simply clicking the link below to sign the petition!  Every click makes a difference!

It is absolutely imperative to demonstrate support as a citizen!  The future of America's energy infrastructure is in your hands!!

When a couple of the landowners CEA claims to represent questioned the group's claims, HBW promptly removed the claims from its facebook page.

How stupid does HBW think the American people are?  Do they ever type a sentence that doesn't end with one (or two!!) exclamation points?  This is ridiculous, ineffective drivel.  C'mon!!!!!!!!

What "lobbying efforts at the White House level" have inhibited "passage" of an energy infrastructure project?  Do you mean the DOE's consideration of Plains & Eastern's Section 1222 application to "participate" in the project in order to override state authority to site and permit transmission?  That decision won't be made until next year.  And it's supposed to be made by DOE secretary Ernest Moniz, not the "white house."  Does HBW and Clean Line know something about some dirty dealings that the rest of us aren't privy to?

So, who are the faces of CEA's "initiative?"

Ryan Scott, Outreach Director

Since 2005, Ryan has provided strategic advice to clients across a number of industries with a focus on the oil and gas sector in particular.

While working as an attorney, before joining HBW, Ryan focused on commercial litigation, often representing business clients in contract disputes.  Prior to practicing law, Ryan worked at Deloitte & Touche’s Strategy & Operations Consulting practice.  While with Deloitte, he worked with clients such as Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), developing and delivering Financial Reporting & Legal training to a BMS executive team.  Ryan evaluated Finance function processes to improve and transform them leading up to a major SAP implementation for Wal-Mart.

Ryan received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Southern California, and a JD – MBA from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.  Ryan is licensed to practice law in Illinois and is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association.

Here's Ryan Scott trading papers with Clean Line public relations "manager" Amy Kurt at the second Mendota Illinois Commerce Commission public forum in the fall of 2013:

And here's Ryan Scott interacting with the ICC judge at the forum:

Here's what Ryan Scott had to say about the Rock Island Clean Line at the forum:

MR. SCOTT: My name is Ryan Scott;
R-y-a-n, S-c-o-t-t. I'm here as a resident of Illinois and representative of Consumer Energy Alliance. We're a trade association representing virtually every sector of the economy from trucking, to organized labor, to energy producers. The reason I'm here to speak in favor of Rock Island is simple. Consumer Energy Alliance and I support this project because it represents an important piece of the energy puzzle to supply consumers with affordable and reliable energy.  Anyone who plugs in their smart phone into an electrical outlet, fires up their television to watch the Bears or perhaps a better football team or just uses their air conditioner will benefit from this project. The bottom line is in the United States demand is increasing. As one of the previous speakers stated, according to the Department of Energy and Energy Information Administration, forecasts of 25 percent increase in demand for electricity over the next three decades are expected in the United States. At the same time, the supply of electricity is expected to decrease due to aging plants and tightening Federal regulations. Many coal-fired power plants will be shuttered in the coming decades. In Illinois coal, which we expect to be decreasing in production, actually makes up approximately 40 percent of the State's energy base level. So that's an important piece of the puzzle that will no longer be available to Illinoisans. For all the reasons stated above and in order to meet Illinois' energy needs, the Consumer Energy Alliance and I support the Rock Island Clean Line project. Thank you.

That's funny.  Ryan didn't mention that Clean Line Energy Partners is a member of the CEA.

Who does Ryan Scott work for?  It's not CEA or its "initiative," it's HBW Resources.  HBW doesn't do anything for free, so I believe that Ryan was paid to appear at the ICC forum and make that statement.

Didn't Clean Line have the opportunity to present its case to the ICC as the applicant?  Why, then, did Clean Line feel it necessary to have paid speakers posing as third party "consumer" interests supporting its project at the forum?  Did Clean Line think it was fooling the ICC into believing that consumers supported RICL?

And now Ryan, HBW, and its new "initiative" think they're fooling a whole new bunch of folks at the "white house" and in the Mayberry towns of Arkansas and Oklahoma?

I wonder what Clean Line's big green supporters think about its getting into bed with fossil fuel interests in the CEA?  At what point are these environmental fools going to conclude that Clean Line isn't about "green" energy, but a different kind of $green$?

And, as far as Clean Line's attempted deception about the "benefits" of the Plains & Eastern Clean Line?  Report to your battle stations, Mayberry!  We're going to have some fun!   You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to fool a farmer.  Also an idiom you've probably heard.  Not translated into Latin.