The folks at Fox News were fuming this week that the EPA apparently suppressed an internal “scientific report” the questioned the rational for listing CO2 as a pollutant under the Clear Air Act.

Sunshine is said to be the best disinfectant, so lets drag this stinky story into the light of day and give it a good airing out.

First of all, the report is hardly secret since it has been helpfully posted on the websites of the Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and several other cheerleaders for the denial industry. The file is available here and if you are having troubling sleeping, you may find it a useful read.

The person listed as the author of the report, Alan Carlin, is not a scientist all, but an economist who works for National Center for Environmental Economics. But is seems Carlin had some considerable help.

Several years ago Ken Gregory of the Astroturf group Friends of Science compiled an eye-glazing compendium of the mish mash of pseudo science that passes for the climate skeptic brain trust. According to the good folks at Real Climate, it seems the Carlin report simply imports sections of this verbatim. Gregory’s name is also referenced 20 times in the report.

Other notorious sources referenced include Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, and our old friend S. Fred Singer.

But what about un-referenced sources? I took the liberty of randomly plugging in quotes from Carlin’s report into a helpful search engine called Plagiarism Checker.com. Guess what? It turns out that some sections  appear to have been lifted verbatim and unreferenced from the website of Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.

It’s a small world after all. Turns out that a PowerPoint being trotted out by House Republicans to undermine the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill was apparently created by none other than dirty fuel giant Peabody Energy.

Grist broke this hilarious story by burrowing into the PowerPoint file properties, revealing the “author” was Peabody CEO Greg Boyce and their communications services manager Chris Taylor was listed as the file “manager.”

Oops.

As if Republican clean energy opponents needed another hit to their already battered credibility, it seems the fossil fuel industry is now even writing their talking points for them.

The PowerPoint and related teleconference event was apparently intended to ““highlight how the Democrats’ National Energy Tax will make it more expensive for rural Americans to fertilize the crops, put fuel in the tractor and food on the table.”

Such scare tactics are now in high rotation on the Hill as the battle heats up for the energy  future of America. Separate bills in the House and Senate are being assailed by vested interests in the powerful carbon lobby, as evidenced by this latest incredible fiasco.

The Heartland Institute has reared its hoary head again, this time fronting three full-page color ads in the Washington Post targeting lawmakers now debating the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) on Capitol Hill.

As I mentioned in my last post, it is not often the denial machine resorts to something as clumsy as buying media exposure. This indicates just how desperate their oily funders are to avoid meaningful regulation of filthy fuels.

That they have managed to dodge this bullet for so long, illustrates just how brilliant Big Oil has been at precluding pesky laws for their dangerous product.

I promised in my last post to pull apart some of the knee-slappers and nose-stretchers in these full-page propaganda pieces and I will try not to disappoint. There is plenty to work with...

You can often judge progress by the reaction of those opposed to it. If that's true, we may finally be getting somewhere.

The notoriously unethical Heartland Institute is blowing a bundle of cash in an all-out effort to derail climate change legislation moving through Congress. The Heartland folks have never been overly encumbered by either ethics or accuracy and their latest effort is no exception.

Heartland is fronting three full-page ads in the Washington Post, transparently targeted at lawmakers now horse-trading over the draft American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).

So what does that kind of action cost? According the Washington Post website, close to $250,000. But that is pocket change for Big Oil and Big Coal, who stand to lose big if US climate policy moves into the 21^st century.

The ads deadpan three hilariously audacious whoppers:

• Climate deniers lack access to the media or politicians,
• Climate scientists the world over are part of some grand conspiracy to deceive the public, and
• You should instead trust a “non-profit” organization with a budget of $5.2 million that refuses to disclose its funders.

I’ll deal with the content of the full-page propaganda effort in a separate post but the first thing to note is the desperation of the tactics.

These are sophisticated players and such ham-handed lobbying techniques are typically a last resort in the public relations toolkit. This latest move illustrates just how isolated vested oil and coal interests have become in the climate change debate.

it’s official. Canadian Environment Minster Jim Prentice fessed up to what experts have been saying all along: that carbon capture and storage (CSS) is close to useless for mitigating the massive emissions from the Alberta tar sands.

Canadian Prime Minister Harper is no doubt pissed that his potential leadership rival has gone off message on such an important issue of spin.

In an editorial board meeting with Globe and Mail Prentice admitted: "CCS is not the silver bullet in the oil sands."

Strange. That's not what his boss said when he committed at least $650 million in taxpayer’s dollars towards this bitumen boondoggle. Harper is a big booster of CSS, stating that:

"This new technology, carbon capture and storage, when fully commercialized ... will collect carbon dioxide emissions from oilsands operations and coal-fired electrical plants and seal them deep underground."

It also obvious that Harper either didn’t read, or care about, the secret memo from his own scientists several months earlier stating exactly the opposite:

"Only a small percentage of emitted CO2 is 'capturable' since most emissions aren't pure enough," the notes say. "Only limited near-term opportunities exist in the oilsands and they largely relate to upgrader facilities."

Among the many conservative think tanks faithfully pushing the skeptic message in Washington, D.C., few are as prominent—or, should I say, infamous—as the Heartland Institute. The “independent” research and non-profit group has the dubious distinction of having organized the first major denier-palooza, the “International Conference on Climate Change,” last year. Despite a less than stellar showing, and an even more lukewarm follow-up in March, it’s hoping that the third time will be the charm.

The likes of Senator James Inhofe, Lord Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts will be descending on the Washington Court Hotel this week to discuss the “widespread dissent to the asserted “consensus” on the causes, consequences, and proper responses to climate change.” Its ostensible purpose will be to “expose Congressional staff and journalists to leading scientists and economists in the nation’s capital” and demonstrate that “global warming is not a crisis and that immediate action to reduce emissions is not necessary”—which it calls the emerging consensus view of (the handful of) scientists outside the IPCC.