Clean Coal's $45m Lobbying/PR Spree

The Center for Public Integrity analyzes the coal industry's strategy to keep coal-fired power plants burning long in to the future:

As Butch Cassidy might say, “Who are those guys?”

They’re the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a collection of 48 mining, rail, manufacturing, and power-generating companies with an annual budget of more than $45 million — almost three times larger than the coal industry’s old lobbying and public relations groups combined.

CPI reports ACCCE spent nearly a quarter of that budget last year lobbying the Senate. That's more than Citigroup spent lobbying altogether last year, and double what Bank of America spent. The rest went to advertising and political donations—all in the name of convincing the public clean coal exists.

The coal industry is actually lobbying to receive support for technology that captures carbon dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants. That technology doesn't make coal any cleaner, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu says carbon-capturing technology will take ten years to prove itself. But the coal industry's lobbying and PR efforts have already reaped one huge benefit: The new draft (PDF) of Henry Waxman and Ed Markey's climate change legislation—about which the House energy committee is holding hearings all week—includes a provision what would allow new coal-burning power plants as long as they capture a large part of their carbon output. This is a major shift on Waxman and Markey's part: Only a year ago they backed a moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants.