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A Message from Nick Surgey, Dirty Tricks Exposed - Reporting on spin and disinformation since 1993

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

A Message from Nick Surgey, Dirty Tricks Exposed Nick Surgey
Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 11:02 AM
Reply-To: editor@prwatch.org
To: peterbnyc@gmail.com

The Center for Media and Democracy - Reporting on spin and disinformation since 1993

Dear CMD supporter:

Exposing the dirty tricks of the fossil fuel industry is a huge part of my work at CMD. Coal companies are fighting tooth and nail to protect their profits, without any care for the cost to the environment, and they are spending big to block any action to tackle climate change.

Leader of the polluting pack is Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, and a major funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Over this past year, CMD’s small research team has filed thousands of state public record requests and released hundreds of pages of internal ALEC documents. (These are the docs that they don’t want you to see, that reveal the world’s largest polluters calling the shots behind the scenes).

Can you help us continue this vital work?

In 2014:

• We discovered and exposed the ALEC/Peabody scheme to lobby state attorneys general to sue the EPA over proposed limits on carbon pollution. 12 states have now joined a lawsuit to block the anti-pollution plan.

• CMD obtained and released ALEC’s own internal documents, revealing 131 bills to roll back state renewable energy standards, hype the Keystone XL pipeline, attack proposed EPA limits on carbon pollution, and create industry-friendly fracking rules.

• After CMD exposed ALEC preaching of climate change denial to legislator members, Google’s Chairman accused ALEC of “literally lying” about the climate and cancelled their ALEC membership. Facebook and a slew of other tech firms followed.

• Next year will be a make or break one for the climate. ALEC and its coal company funders will be doubling down on the dirty tricks, and our work exposing them is more crucial than ever.

Will you support our research on climate with a generous donation today?

Sincerely,

Nick Surgey Director of Research Center for Media and Democracy Center for Media and Democracy
PO Box 259010
Madison, WI 53725
608.260.9713
editor@prwatch.org