Investigating Power
Even as the Environmental Protection Agency finally attempts to limit carbon dioxide pollution from coal plants, it is meeting resistance at the state level, thanks to a secretive campaign by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
The Supreme Court is poised to decide is Harris v. Quinn, “the most important labor law case the court has considered in decades.”
The Koch family-controlled Claude R. Lambe Foundation (CRLF), one of the routine sources of funding for right wing groups for more than thirty years has dissolved, further limiting what little is publicly known of which groups seeking to change Americans’ rights receive money controlled or directed by Charles and David Koch and their operatives.
An internal tracking document — obtained from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by the Center for Media and Democracy under Texas public records law — reveals the scope of ALEC’s anti-environmental efforts in 2014.
Newly-released ALEC documents obtained as part of CMD”s open records litigation provide more evidence that lobbyists and special interests are calling the shots within ALEC, undermining that group’s latest PR spin that it is a “legislator-driven” organization.
Millions of U.S. citizens have voiced their opposition to the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline in recent months, with more than 2 million public comments opposing the project hand delivered to the State Department last week. At the same time, hundreds of state legislators have been lining up in favor of KXL, seemingly just as passionate and as heartfelt as those opposed to the project. But many legislators have been tasked with promoting the project by oil industry lobbyists who provide them with model bills, talking points and draft op-eds.
An internal ALEC document provided to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), shows that a Peabody Energy lobbyist provided ALEC legislators with a presentation on how to get more cash from corporations like Peabody to attend ALEC conferences. Peabody, a long time member of ALEC, is a frequent presenter at ALEC events and sponsor of several items of ALEC “model” legislation in recent years.
As Comcast moves forward with its plan to take over Time Warner Cable, their legislative agenda is facing greater scrutiny.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has secretly lobbied for the adoption of its corporate-backed bills and tracked them for years, is likely anticipating or actually under an IRS examination, says a former head of the IRS Exempt Organizations division, Marcus Owens. He makes this observation in light of recent claims by ALEC staff that it does not track where its bills are introduced or passed, despite extensive evidence that it has done so for years and bragged about doing so.
The State Policy Network (SPN), a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country, has close ties with the tobacco industry. When tobacco companies like Reynolds American or Altria/Philip Morris want to avoid tobacco taxes and health regulations, reports by SPN groups in many states can help inspire local resistance.