Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

Who Has the White House's Ear on Climate and Energy?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Nov. 2, 2009 8:41 AM PST

What could ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson be discussing with the White House?

Tillerson, the head of the wold's largest oil company, has made three visits to the White House this year, according to the vistor logs released on Friday evening. Tillerson was the only energy company CEO listed on the logs, though the logs only include names specifically requested.

Tillerson met with both Larry Summers, the director of Obama's National Economic Council, and Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. This is the same Rex Tillerson who has questioned climate science, but also advocated for a tax on carbon rather than a cap-and-trade plan. Oh, and Exxon continues to fund climate change denial despite pledging to stop.

Notably, the list doesn't seem to include any coal industry executives, a topic that drew attention earlier this year when Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records of visits from the CEOs of 16 major coal companies and lobby groups. It appears that none of those CEOs have been hanging out at the White House after all.

Other interesting visitors with an interest in climate and energy policy: General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, who visited five times; Al Gore, who visited four times, and Newt Gingrich, who visited once.

UPDATE: Sebastian Jones also searched the logs and notes that that Chevron CEO David J. O'Reilly appears to have dropped by for five meetings with high-ranking administration officials.

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Republicans Threaten to Boycott Climate Bill Markup

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Oct. 30, 2009 1:37 PM PDT

After three days of hearings on the climate bill this week, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee planned to start marking up the legislation on Tuesday. Or, at least the Democrats on the panel intended to do so. The Republicans are now threatening to boycott the session—which could prevent Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) from moving the legislation out of her committee.

Boxer doesn't need Republicans to actually vote for the bill—Democrats hold a 12-7 majority on the panel. But she does need two GOP senators present to hold a markup, according to committee rules. The proposed boycott is apparently being lead by Sens. George Voinovich of Ohio and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Voinovich says he wants extra time so the EPA can produce a more comprehensive assessment of the bill (read: an assessment that he agrees with).

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Bonner's "Legal" Astroturfing Activities Also Extremely Dubious

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Oct. 30, 2009 1:28 PM PDT

The congressional investigation into the forged Bonner letters has exposed a number of clearly or potentially illegal activities conducted by or on behalf of the coal industry in its fight against the Waxman-Markey climate bill. But the documents released by the investigation also made plain that even the ostensibly legal astroturfing activities of the industry and its contractors are at best really, really questionable.

The documents show that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) hired contractors who reached out to community groups representing vulnerable constituencies and blatantly mislead those groups about their motivations. ACCCE paid a PR company, the Hawthorn Group, nearly $3 million in 2009 for "outreach to individuals and groups representing the interests of minorities, seniors, business, and veterans." Hawthorn in turn hired Bonner and Associates to drum up letters from those groups. The plan, as an email between Hawthorn and Bonner confirms, was to send the letters to politically weak Democrats who were still on the fence about their vote on the climate bill.

The investigation shows that even the 45 supposedly "legit" letters that Bonner managed to generate from these groups were elicited under false pretenses. Bonner employees were provided with a script that directed them to identify themselves as "working with seniors" or "working with vets"—without ever mentioning that they were actually calling on behalf of the coal industry. Callers were then instructed to play on the economic anxieties of the constituency in question:

"Hi xyz, I am working with seniors/retirees to help stop their utility bills from doubling," reads one script offered to Bonner employees.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Bonner's Five Point Plan for Quality Control

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Oct. 30, 2009 6:21 AM PDT

Jack Bonner, head of Bonner and Associates, insisted in congressional testimony on Thursday that the forged letters his company sent to lawmakers were the work of a single "rogue" employee, not the result of any deeper problems at his firm. The incident, Bonner's lawyer wrote in a letter to the committee, "was an anomaly in the lengthy and honorable operation of this business."

Regardless, Bonner has now developed a "five point action plan" which it believes will prevent dishonest conduct and help the company "earn the reputation as the industry leader for the highest quality standards." Unfortunately, the big plan reads more like a list of very basic procedures that should have been in place all along, such as checking the resumes of employees, introducing an ethics policy, and making sure employees don't lie. The full plan is below the jump:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Should the DOJ Take Up the Letter Fraud Case?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Oct. 29, 2009 3:25 PM PDT

Will the coal industry representative who may have lied under oath to Congress on Thursday face legal repercussions?

Steve Miller, CEO for American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a major coal industry lobby group, said under oath that his organization "has never opposed the Waxman-Markey bill," when in fact the group both publicly opposed the House climate bill and funded campaigns to convince legislators to vote against it.

Mother Jones contacted the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming to see whether they plan to pursue the issue. "We are currently reviewing the testimony and we will make any assessments on steps going forward after we review the testimony," said Eben Burnham-Snyder, a spokesman for the committee.

If the committee decides that there's cause to believe that Miller perjured himself, the matter would be turned over to the Department of Justice for investigation.

Activist groups are already hoping that the DOJ will get involved. After the details of the forged letters broke in August, the Sierra Club asked the DOJ to look into the case as potential wire fraud and MoveOn urged its members to sign a petition asking for a DOJ investigation.