http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/14/new-koch-back-campaign-rolled-out-red-state-gathering-aims-promote-positives-fossil-fuels
[Given the Koch Brothers and friends can't figure out how to bring the
Republican Presidential nominee to heel, you knew their money had to
show up somewhere to distort the current political landscape.
video and links in on-line article]
New Koch-Funded Group ‘Fueling US Forward’ Aims to Promote the
"Positives" of Fossil Fuels
By Sharon Kelly • Sunday, August 14, 2016 - 21:54
A long-awaited campaign to rebrand fossil fuels called Fueling U.S.
Forward made its public debut at the Red State Gathering 2016 on
Saturday, where the organization's President and CEO Charles Drevna gave
attendees the inside scoop on the effort, and confirmed that the
campaign is backed financially by Koch Industries.
Back in February, Peter Stone first reported in the Huffington Post that
a $10 million-a-year effort was proposed by a Koch Industries board
member, James Mahoney, and Mr. Drevna, aiming “to boost petroleum-based
transportation fuels and attack government subsidies for electric
vehicles.” In early August, the Fueling U.S. Forward website launched,
and on Saturday, the first public comments were made about the campaign
by Mr. Drevna, and they revealed a lot about how the Koch-backed
initiative is working to re-frame fossil fuels.
“We need a sustainable energy to ensure the future of the country,” Mr.
Drevna told the audience.
The source of that energy? That which Mr. Drevna labeled “reliable,
abundant, efficient and sustainable fuels.”
“Folks, that's of course the fossil fuels,” he immediately added.
Never mind that fossil fuels don't align with any dictionary definition
of “sustainable,” as oil, gas and coal reserves are limited to what's
buried in the ground, unlike renewable sources of energy. Technically
speaking, fossil fuels are the opposite of sustainable energy sources —
but that fact did little to slow Mr. Drevna down as he made what he
called the “pro-human” case for burning fossil fuels.
The top line takeaway from Mr. Drevna's comments is that the Koch-funded
Fueling U.S. Forward is an effort to rebrand fossil fuels, focusing on
the “positive” sides of oil, gas and coal.
The new initiative comes at a time when the impacts of climate change
are becoming more difficult to ignore. 2016 is already on track to be
the hottest year ever recorded, a mid-year climate analysis from NASA
reported, and unusual storms, like the torrential rainfall that struck
the Gulf Coast over the past few days causing historic flooding, have
become more frequent.
For its part, Fueling U.S. Forward wants to talk not about statistics,
facts and figures, but to reach people's emotions.
“We've got to take this to the emotional and personal level,” Mr.
Drevna, a former D.C. lobbyist and Sunoco executive, told the crowd.
“Oil and natural gas, they're not the fuels of the past and maybe the
present or a necessary evil. They are the future.”
In Peter Stone's investigation for Huffington Post, many familiar with
the early workings of the project that would grow into Fueling U.S.
Forward described it as an effort to bolster public opinion of fossil
fuels and to combat electric vehicles.
Mr. Drevna's new organization appears for now largely focused on the
first half of that equation. Asked after his talk if Fueling U.S.
Forward planned to campaign against electric vehicles, Mr. Drevna said
that his organization was focused on the positives of fossil fuels. He
confirmed that he was working with Mr. Mahoney and that Fueling U.S.
Forward had indeed received funding from Koch Industries.
Koch Vs. Clean
Koch Vs. Clean, a DeSmog microsite launched today, takes a closer look
at the Koch network's efforts to promote the continued burning of fossil
fuels and undermine clean energy innovations and electric vehicles, and
the role that Mr. Drevna and a handful of others are playing in that
offensive.
Throughout the day at Red State Gathering, panelists from Koch-linked
organizations repeatedly cited Tesla Motors as an example of government
subsidies gone awry, a talking point that seemed aimed to resonate with
fiscal conservatives at the RSG 2016.
There's good reason for the oil industry to fear the rise of American
electric vehicles. “Volkswagen AG, in an attempt to recover from its
emissions-cheating scandal, has said it will create 30 new electric
models within a decade,” E&E News recently reported. “General Motors Co.
has invested $500 million in Lyft, the ride-hailing service, and intends
for Lyft's drivers to pick up passengers in GM's new electric compact,
the Chevrolet Bolt.”
The Kochs' newest effort doesn't openly oppose electric vehicles or
renewable energy technologies, but tries to frame them as uniquely
dependent on government subsidies (despite the fact that the fossil fuel
industry benefits from quadruple the amount of government subsidies as
the renewable energy industry, according to the International Energy
Agency).
And Fueling U.S. Forward is an effort to paint fossil fuels as good for
people because they're cheap — a gamble that Americans have already
forgotten how prices have fluctuated wildly for the past decade, when
repeated price spikes saw average US gas prices rise as high as $4.10 a
gallon, roughly double current prices.
That said, the argument that everyone benefits from cheap fossil fuels
could be dangerously appealing at a time of historic economic
stratification in the U.S.— a staggeringly large gap between the
ultra-rich like the Koch brothers and the rest of us.
But supporting fossil fuels to aid the poor is a message that the Kochs
have also paired with campaigns that will keep people poor, including
opposing minimum wage hikes (at a time when the Fight for 15 movement,
which supports more than doubling the current federal minimum wage is
gaining credible political traction) or calling for the minimum wage to
be repealed altogether.
As of press time, Koch Industries had not responded to questions from
DeSmog about the company's motivation for funding Fueling U.S. Forward.
It's a tension that seemed to trip up Mr. Drevna as he talked this
weekend, describing how fossil fuels had led to prosperity for the
world's people — or at least some of them.
“And we are basically richer than ever before,” Mr. Drevna told the
crowd at the Red State Gathering, before catching himself and adding “as
a world we are. As a nation we are basically richer than ever before.”
In other words, some people have gotten rich because of fossil fuels —
and for the rest of us, we better keep using coal and gasoline and hope
it stays cheap.
Mr. Drevna also told the crowd that for a long time, the oil industry
had “been engaged in asymmetric warfare”—hardly the language of someone
who sees themselves as on the side of the masses.
The new tactics that Fueling U.S. Forward plans to bring to the table then?
“We're partnering with other organizations too, especially
non-traditional allies like the minority community,” Mr. Drevna told the
nearly all-white crowd. “Who in the heck gets hit hardest and fastest
when there's an energy crisis and prices go up? They do.”
While Mr. Drevna may want to research the definition of tokenizing as
well as “sustainable energy,” it's worth noting that communities of
color also get hit hardest and fastest when climate catastrophes occur
(think the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina), and by the day to day
impacts of, say, refineries located in black and Latino neighborhoods,
where asthma, cancer, and other health problems too often plague residents.
But then again, Fueling U.S. Forward aims to keep attention on the
positives. Stay tuned to KochvsClean.com for regular updates about this
Koch-funded pro-fossil PR effort.
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