We covered the Citizen Energy protest on this blog before because I went to the event they held in Springfield and was appalled. You will have to go back and look at my May posts or maybe June because I do not remember when they were. I took pictures…it was so bogus it would give astroturf a bad name. Most of the attendees were Republican and industry operatives or they were seniors bussed in from Southern Illinois. I mean like 6 big Greyhound style buses.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/3

The Fake Protestor
Jack Gerard
President, American Petroleum

As head of the American Petroleum Institute, Gerard serves as the frontman for the nation’s oil and gas industry, including energy giants like Exxon, Shell, BP and Halliburton. Although API now claims to back the move to a “carbon-constrained economy,” Gerard has been working behind the scenes to scuttle climate legislation. According to an internal memo leaked in August, Gerard directed API’s nearly 400 member companies to mobilize their employees to attend “Energy Citizen” rallies in 20 states to protest a cap on carbon pollution. To ensure the success of the fake grass-roots protests, Gerard bragged that he had also enlisted a bevy of polluting allies — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. “Please treat this information as sensitive,” Gerard cautioned in the memo. “We don’t want critics to know our game plan.”

This is not the first time that API has been at the center of a secretive campaign to derail carbon controls.
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Please read both environmental pieces in this issue of Rolling Stone online. They are great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUxnpQFlsS4

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