Blog Archive

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

UPDATE: Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) will hold one last hearing in his Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming


Live stream here:


Swan song for House climate panel

Ed Markey is shown here. | AP photo
Climate change is not 'going away' -- and neither is Markey, a spokesman said. | AP PhotoClose

Rep. Ed Markey will be forced to relinquish his climate change committee gavel next year, but he’s not going quietly.
Before the GOP takes over the House in January, Markey (D-Mass.) will hold one last hearing in his Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.


Markey’s invited a star-studded cast of witnesses to attest to the perils of climate change and, he hopes, leave a lasting impression before House Republicans launch their efforts to roll back the Obama administration’s efforts to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark and outspoken environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are among those invited to testify.
Kennedy recently told POLITICO he blames the right-wing media and the “narcissistic hacks” in Congress for the death of climate legislation. He did, however, proclaim Markey to be an environmental hero.
The hearing will certainly be Markey’s last as chairman, and may be the final one ever for the select committee, the panel created in 2007 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to draw attention to global warming.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the committee’s ranking member, has said he’d like to keep it around to probe the Obama administration’s energy policies, but GOP leadership is expected to axe the panel. A spokesman for Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner (R-Ohio) said no decisions have been made.
The outgoing chairman also wants to remind Republicans that he and others will fight from the minority to curb global warming emissions, said Markey spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder. 
“We don’t think these issues are going away and regardless of what happens with the politics, these problems of energy dependence and climate change are not going away,” he said. “I think this is also saying, especially for Chairman Markey and for the members of Congress still dedicated to these issues, that we’re not going away either.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45696.html#ixzz16nCygMzS

Live streamed hearing on America's energy security, jobs and climate challenges, Dec. 1, 11 a.m.

HEARING WEDNESDAY: “Not Going Away: America's Energy Security, Jobs and Climate Challenges.”

Politics May Change, But Problems Continue; Gen. Wesley Clark, RFK Jr. Lead All-Star Panel

November 29, 2010 – While politics continue to evolve here in America, the challenges presented by our dependence on oil and fossil fuels, and the increasing destabilization of the climate continue to persist. General Wesley Clark, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and an all-star panel will discuss these ongoing challenges from national, economic and planetary security perspectives.

The Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming will hold a hearing on Wednesday, December 1, 2010, at 11:00 a.m., in room 210, in the Cannon House Office Building.  

The hearing is entitled, “Not Going Away: America's Energy Security, Jobs and Climate Challenges.”

WHAT: Select Committee hearing: “Not Going Away: America's Energy Security, Jobs and Climate Challenges.”

WHEN: Wednesday, December 1, 2010, at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE: 210 Cannon House Office Building, Capitol Complex, Washington, D.C.

This hearing will be streamed live at globalwarming.house.gov.

WITNESSES:
General Wesley K. Clark, US Army (Ret.), NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe 1997-2000
Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of the Waterkeepers Alliance
Richard L. Kauffman, Chairman of the Board, Levi Strauss & Co.
Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security
Kenneth Green, American Enterprise Institute

Climate Change Is Still About Chinese Coal


Climate Change Is Still About Chinese Coal


by Derek Scissors, The Foundry, American Leadership, November 28, 2010

[Dear Readers, Read this article with a jaundiced eye. It is from a right-wing "think" tank site.  The graph cannot be vouched for. The simplistic idea that the Copenhagen conference tanked only because of coal is ridiculous -- there were far more factors involved, especially 3 decades of right-wing "think" tank funding of junk science and climate change denialism; however, it is well known that China has an energy problem and they are buying up future supplies of coal and oil anywhere they can find them, including a 20-year coal contract with the Australians and a $10 billion contract with the Brazilian oil company Petrobras.]




The climate change conference starting in Cancun Monday is doomed to failure. Many factors contribute to this, such as a healthy skepticism about how much should be spent to remediate climate change, but one alone guarantees failure: Chinese coal production and policy.
When climate change soared up the American agenda with the election of President Obama, those not swept up in blind optimism were doubtful China could be convinced to go along. The debacle of the Copenhagen summit last year finally brought the administration and its supporters back to reality.
Prior to Copenhagen, it was already clear that Chinese coal was an insuperable obstacle to an international agreement on greenhouse gases. The past year has made the situation that much starker.
In 2000, the official figure for Chinese coal production was 880 million tons. In less than a decade, it more than tripled to 2.96 billion tons for 2009. In the first quarter of this year, coal production jumped another 28%. China, which was a net exporter of coal as recently as 2008, was the world’s largest importer of coal in the first three quarters of this year and far more in the way of imports are on the way.
China is spending a good deal of money on “green energy” and it is constantly praised for doing so. The praise is somewhat strange: the supposed switch from “black” to “green” has done nothing at all to stop coal: production growth was faster in 2008 than 2007, despite the financial crisis, and steady in 2009 before accelerating early this year. It very well may be that the PRC now accounts for half the world’s coal use.
This is the other facet of Chinese coal policy and is just as disturbing. “It may very well be” that China accounts for half the world’s coal use because there is no longer an easy way to know. China stopped publishing coal production figures in March, possibly because it was about to cross the threshold of half of global consumption and certainly because the coal figures are embarrassing on a number of dimensions.
The PRC has been at odds with the U.S. and other countries about monitoring and enforcement of any international environmental treaty. But how could anyone trust China to monitor itself when it is no longer even willing to provide the most basic and critical piece of information?
The answer is that no sane person could. Cancun will be as useless as Copenhagen was, and for the same principal reason: Chinese coal. This time, however, no one will be surprised.

Big polluters freed from environmental oversight (NEPA exclusions exemptions) by stimulus. BP, Westar, DuPont, Duke Energy, Didion among companies exempt from environmental law


Big polluters freed from environmental oversight by stimulus

BP, Westar, DuPont among companies exempt from environmental law





by Kristen Lombardi and John Solomon, Center for Public Integrity, Tucson Sentinel, November 29, 2010
[Dear Readers, If this is all true, it is pretty shocking, and ultimately demoralizing.]
In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.
The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy and Duke Energy, chemical manufacturer DuPont, and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the firms with histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA exemptions.
Even a project at BP’s maligned refinery in Texas City, Tex. — owner of the oil industry’s worst safety record and site of a deadly 2005 explosion, as well as a benzene leak earlier this year — secured a waiver for the preliminary phase of a carbon capture and sequestration experiment involving two companies with past compliance problems. The primary firm has since dropped out of the project before it could advance to the second phase.
Agency officials who granted the exemptions told the Center that they do not have time in most cases to review the environmental compliance records of stimulus recipients, and do not believe past violations should affect polluters’ chances of winning stimulus money or the NEPA exclusions.
The so-called “stimulus” funding came from the $787-billion legislation officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February 2009.
Documents obtained by the Center show the administration has devised a speedy review process that relies on voluntary disclosures by companies to determine whether stimulus projects pose environmental harm. Corporate polluters often omitted mention of health, safety, and environmental violations from their applications. In fact, administration officials told the Center they chose to ignore companies’ environmental compliance records in making grant decisions and issuing NEPA exemptions, saying they considered such information irrelevant.
Some polluters reported their stimulus projects might cause “unknown environmental risks” or could “adversely affect” sensitive resources, the documents show. Others acknowledged they would produce hazardous air pollutants or toxic metals. Still others won stimulus money just weeks after settling major pollution cases. Yet nearly all got exemptions from full environmental analyses, the documents show.
This approach to stimulus projects has left the Obama administration at odds with its usual allies in the green movement. Some environmental advocates told the Center the goals of creating a clean energy economy and more jobs don’t outweigh the risks of giving money to and foregoing supervision of repeat violators of anti-pollution laws.
“Why bring somebody who was a known bad actor and give them government money and a categorical exclusion for their project?” asked David Pettit, a Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer who has litigated cases under NEPA.
Top-level administration officials and career employees who granted the so-called categorical exclusions under NEPA defend their decisions. They argue that these exemptions were essential to accelerate more than $30 billion in stimulus-funded clean energy projects, allocated by the Energy Department, which they say have already created 35,000 jobs. They note that the department frequently grants NEPA exemptions to projects of all kinds. And in the long run, they say, the exempted stimulus activities will serve to boost energy efficiency and curb pollution.
Go to this link to read more:  

Monday, November 29, 2010

Canada asked firms to help kill U.S. green policies. Diplomats sought solution to ensure that 'the oil keeps a-flowing,' according to documents

Canada asked firms to help kill U.S. green policies.

 

Diplomats sought solution to ensure that 'the oil keeps a-flowing,' according to documents

 



Canadian diplomats in Washington have quietly asked oil-industry players such as ExxonMobil and BP to help "kill" U.S. global-warming policies in order to ensure that "the oil keeps a-flowing" from Alberta into the U.S. marketplace, Postmedia News has learned.

In a series of newly released correspondence from Canada's Washington embassy, the Canadian diplomats describe recommendations from Environment Canada to clean up the oilsands as "simply nutty," proposing instead to "kill any interpretation" of U.S. energy legislation that would apply to the industry.

"We hope that we can find a solution to ensure that the oil keeps a-flowing," wrote Jason Tolland, from the Canadian Embassy in an exchange of e-mails with government trade lawyers on Feb. 8, 2008.

The correspondence, released to the Pembina Institute, an environmental research group, that obtained it through access-to-information legislation, comes as the international community gathers in Cancun for the annual United Nations summit on global warming.

The new documents follow revelations by Postmedia News last week that the Harper government had crafted a communications strategy with industry stakeholders and the Alberta government to attack foreign environmental policies and promote the oilsands.

Clare Demerse, associate director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, said the government should remember that it works for Canadians, not the oil firms.

"A responsible government would see clean energy policies outside our borders as an opportunity to do better, not as a threat," said Clare Demerse.

"Reading through these documents, I'm struck that no one at Foreign Affairs ever acknowledges that cutting greenhouse-gas pollution could be a good thing. Instead, the officials dismiss U.S. efforts to clean up the fuel they buy as 'protectionism.' "

The messages from diplomats were sent as the oilsands industry was lobbying against Section 526 of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act, which could restrict U.S. government departments and agencies from buying fuel with a high environmental footprint.

"The U.S. government -- read administration -- is looking to us to provide support for their work to kill any interpretation of this section that would apply to Canadian oil sands," wrote Tolland. "That is the purpose of this."

The correspondence reveals that the Canadian diplomats had contacted officials from the American Petroleum Institute -- an industry association -- as well as from Exxon Mobil Corp., BP, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Encana Corp., and Marathon Oil Corp. "to point out the potential implication to their imports from Canada."

One e-mail sent by Paul Connors, who at the time was an energy counsellor at the embassy, encouraged an official with Exxon Mobil to get involved in the political debate against the legislation.

"I would encourage your firm to make its views known to DOE (U.S. Department of Energy) and the Hill (politicians)," wrote Connors to Susan E. Carter from Exxon Mobil on Jan. 22, 2008. "I would be most grateful for your company's views on the issue."

According to Article 41 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, visiting diplomats in a receiving state "have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State."

In a separate e-mail, Connors also rejected a recommendation from Helen Ryan, a senior Environment Canada official responsible for oil, gas and alternative energy, that the Canadian government needed to convey, in a letter from the ambassador, the importance of putting "more pressure" on the oilsands industry to invest in technology to clean up their pollution.

"If intended for the letter, (this point) is simply nutty," wrote Connors on Feb. 19, 2008.

When asked if the tactics used by the Canadian diplomats were accepted practices, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade defended the oilsands industry and said that meetings with decision-makers, those who influence them and stakeholders on Canadian priorities are a regular aspect of Canada's engagement abroad.

"Canada does not consider oil from oil sands to be an alternative fuel," wrote Laura Markle in an e-mail.

"Oil sands production is commercial and, like other oil, is processed in conventional facilities. The government will continue the promotion of a strategic resource that will contribute to energy security for Canada, North America and the world for decades to come."


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Canada+asked+firms+help+kill+green+policies/3898044/story.html#ixzz16jHZ84P6

"Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world" by Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A, 369(1934) (13 January 2011)

Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A (13 January 2011), Vol. 369, No. 1934, pp. 20-44; doi: 10.1098/rsta.2010.0290



Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world



Kevin Anderson (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK, and School of Environmental Sciences and School of Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7JT, UK) and Alice Bows* (Sustainable Consumption Institute, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK)

Abstract

The Copenhagen Accord reiterates the international community’s commitment to ‘hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius’. Yet its preferred focus on global emission peak dates and longer-term reduction targets, without recourse to cumulative emission budgets, belies seriously the scale and scope of mitigation necessary to meet such a commitment. Moreover, the pivotal importance of emissions from non-Annex 1 nations in shaping available space for Annex 1 emission pathways received, and continues to receive, little attention. Building on previous studies, this paper uses a cumulative emissions framing, broken down to Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 nations, to understand the implications of rapid emission growth in nations such as China and India, for mitigation rates elsewhere. The analysis suggests that despite high-level statements to the contrary, there is now little to no chance of maintaining the global mean surface temperature at or below 2°C. Moreover, the impacts associated with 2°C have been revised upwards, sufficiently so that 2°C now more appropriately represents the threshold between ‘dangerous’ and ‘extremely dangerous’ climate change. Ultimately, the science of climate change allied with the emission scenarios for Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 nations suggests a radically different framing of the mitigation and adaptation challenge from that accompanying many other analyses, particularly those directly informing policy.


*Correspondence e-mail: alice.bows@manchester.ac.uk


Link:  http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934/20.full

Canadian diplomats lobby to ‘kill’ U.S. green policies, contacted officials from the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon-Mobil, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Encana, and Marathon Oil “to point out the potential implication [of Section 526 of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act] to their imports from Canada.”


by Joseph Romm, Climate Progress, November 29, 2010
Canadian diplomats in Washington have quietly asked oil-industry players such as Exxon Mobil and BP to help ensure that oil from Alberta continues to flow into the U.S. marketplace, Postmedia News has learned. 
In a series of newly released correspondence from Canada’s Washington embassy, the Canadian diplomats describe recommendations from Environment Canada to clean up the oilsands as “simply nutty,” proposing instead to “kill any interpretation” of U.S. energy legislation that would apply to the industry.
Oh, Canada, surely you can’t be seri0us.

In honor of the late Canadian-American actor and comedian Leslie Nielsen, our neighbor up north replies, “I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.”

To which I reply, well stop calling them oilsands.  The phrase makes it seem like, oh, I don’t know, maybe up through the sand came a bubblin crude, oil that is, black gold, Texas tea, Athabasca euphemism (see CP commenter, Jim Eager, here).

As an aside, it’s hard to believe that the recently departed master of deadpan humor was for decades a leading dramatic actor, whose second movie was Forbidden Planet, the science fiction masterpiece derived from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  But I digress.

Sadly nothing seems forbidden on this planet.  The Calgary News story continues:
“We hope that we can find a solution to ensure that the oil keeps a-flowing,” wrote Jason Tolland, from the Canadian Embassy in an exchange of e-mails with government trade lawyers on Feb. 8, 2008. 
The correspondence, released to the Pembina Institute, an environmental research group, that obtained it through access-to-information legislation, comes as the international community gathers in Cancun, Mexico, for the annual United Nations summit on global warming. 
The new documents also follow revelations by Postmedia News last week that the Harper government had crafted a multi-department communications strategy with industry stakeholders and the Alberta government to attack foreign environmental policies and promote the oilsands.
Clare Demerse, the associate director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, said the government should remember that it works for Canadians, not the oil companies. 
“A responsible government would see clean energy policies outside our borders as an opportunity to do better, not as a threat,” Demerse said. 
“Reading through these documents, I’m struck that no one at Foreign Affairs ever acknowledges that cutting greenhouse gas pollution could be a good thing. Instead, the officials dismiss U.S. efforts to clean up the fuel they buy as ‘protectionism.’ ” 
The messages from diplomats were sent as the oilsands industry was lobbying against Section 526 of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act, which could restrict U.S. government departments and agencies from buying fuel with a high environmental footprint. 
“The U.S. government — read administration — is looking to us to provide support for their work to kill any interpretation of this section that would apply to Canadian oilsands,” Tolland wrote. “That is the purpose of this.” 
The correspondence reveals that the Canadian diplomats had contacted officials from the American Petroleum Institute as well as from Exxon-Mobil Corp., BP, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Encana Corp., and Marathon Oil Corp. “to point out the potential implication to their imports from Canada.” 
According to Article 41 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, visiting diplomats “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.”
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!  No, seriously, we do — on guard!

4 Responses to “Canadian diplomats lobby to ‘kill’ U.S. green policies”

  1. Brian D says:
    As is typical for CanWest sources, not every “mirror” has the whole story, even on their online pages. Different editors cut different bits of the original story.

    The “original” as near as I can tell is from the Ottawa Citizen, which has the following extra segments (just replace the paragraph on the Vienna Convention with the following, which includes the paragraph where it should be):
    One e-mail sent by Paul Connors, who at the time was an energy counsellor at the embassy, encouraged an official with Exxon Mobil to get involved in the political debate against the legislation. 
    “I would encourage your firm to make its views known to DOE (U.S. Department of Energy) and the Hill (politicians),” wrote Connors to Susan E. Carter from Exxon Mobil on Jan. 22, 2008. “I would be most grateful for your company’s views on the issue.” 
    According to Article 41 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, visiting diplomats in a receiving state “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.” 
    In a separate e-mail, Connors also rejected a recommendation from Helen Ryan, a senior Environment Canada official responsible for oil, gas and alternative energy, that the Canadian government needed to convey, in a letter from the ambassador, the importance of putting “more pressure” on the oilsands industry to invest in technology to clean up their pollution. 
    “If intended for the letter, (this point) is simply nutty,” wrote Connors on Feb. 19, 2008. 
    When asked if the tactics used by the Canadian diplomats were accepted practices, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade defended the oilsands industry and said that meetings with decision-makers, those who influence them and stakeholders on Canadian priorities are a regular aspect of Canada’s engagement abroad. 
    “Canada does not consider oil from oil sands to be an alternative fuel,” wrote Laura Markle in an e-mail. 
    “Oil sands production is commercial and, like other oil, is processed in conventional facilities. The government will continue the promotion of a strategic resource that will contribute to energy security for Canada, North America and the world for decades to come.”
    Other CanWest sources leave out different pieces of the story. The Calgary Herald saw fit to remove all traces of Paul Connors, for instance. I can see them doing this for the print version where space is limited (my own paper listed this on page 12, sharing space with an otherwise full-page ad), but for the online version?

    Link:  http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/29/canadian-diplomats-lobby-to-kill-u-s-green-policies/#more-37646

Mother Jones: Greenpeace sues Chemical and PR Firms for "Unlawful" Spying

Greenpeace sues Chemical and PR Firms for "Unlawful" Spying

In 2008, Mother Jones blew the lid off corporate black ops against environmental groups. Now one of the targets is fighting back.

More than two years ago, Mother Jones exposed a private security firm run by former Secret Service agents that had spied on an array of environmental groups on behalf of corporate clients, in some cases infiltrating unsuspecting organizations with operatives posing as activists. Now, one of the targets of this corporate espionage is fighting back.
On Monday, Greenpeace filed suit in federal district court in Washington, DC, against the Dow Chemical Company and Sasol North America, charging that the two multinational chemical manufacturers sought to thwart its environmental campaigns against genetically engineered foods and chemical pollution through elaborate undercover operations. Also named in the suit are Dezenhall Resources and Ketchum, public relations firms hired by Sasol and Dow respectively, and four ex-employees of that now-defunct security firm, Beckett Brown International (BBI).
The suit charges that between 1998 and 2000 the chemical companies, the PR firms, and BBI "conspired to and did surveil, infiltrate and steal confidential information from Greenpeace with the intention of preempting, blunting or thwarting its environmental campaigns. These unlawful activities included trespassing on the property of Greenpeace, infiltrating its offices, meetings and electronic communications under false pretenses and/or by force, and by these means, stealing confidential documents, data and trade secrets from Greenpeace." Greenpeace is seeking an injunction against further trespass and thefts of trade secrets, as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

The lawsuit stems from an April 2008 Mother Jones article that detailed a series of black ops carried out by BBI against Greenpeace and other environmental groups. The story was based largely on internal BBI records made available to the magazine by John Dodd, a principal investor and officer of BBI. At the time, Dodd said he decided to come forward after discovering that BBI's employees had defrauded him and engaged in unscrupulous snooping on activist groups and other targets.
Mother Jones reporters sifted through thousands of pages of internal documents that included billing records, surveillance reports, and email correspondence from undercover operatives in Washington and Lake Charles, Louisiana. Contained in the trove were a variety of internal Greenpeace records, including strategy memos, campaign plans, donor lists, and documents that included credit card information and the social security numbers of Greenpeace employees. Also unearthed were similar records belonging to other organizations, including Friends of the Earth, GE Food Alert, the Center for Food Safety, and Fenton Communications, a PR firm that represents various environmental groups.
Following Mother Jones' story, Greenpeace officials were granted access to Dodd's BBI archive, where they eventually recovered more than 1000 pages of internal Greenpeace records. The complaint charges that: "The vast majority of Greenpeace’s internal documents that were ultimately recovered from BBI were in pristine condition, giving rise to the inference that these documents were not taken from trash dumpsters, but rather from recycling receptacles and/or…from inside Greenpeace’s office."
BBI's operations included clandestine night-time dumpster diving sorties into Greenpeace’s trash and recycling bins in the alleys of downtown Washington. The firm's operatives were assisted by at least one active duty Washington police officer, who may have used his badge to gain entrance into Greenpeace's gated trash area, the environmental group alleges. Between July 1998 and October 2000, BBI operatives stole internal Greenpeace records on at least 100 occasions, the group claims.
According to the complaint, internal BBI documents show that "BBI employees or contractors tested multiple three- and four-digit codes and documented whether each code was successful in granting access" to Greenpeace's Washington headquarters. The suit also charges that BBI "appears to have broken into the offices" of a Louisiana law firm engaged in litigation against the Condea Vista chemical company (now Sasol North America).
Undercover operatives employed by BBI organized an elaborate system to penetrate Greenpeace, sending at least one contractor posing volunteer to surveil Greenpeace's Washington offices, the complaint states. Meanwhile, other BBI employees and contractors spied on Greenpeace employees and other activists in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where environmentalists were engaged in a fierce campaign against Condea Vista.
Condea Vista employed BBI directly and through its PR firm, Dezenhall-Nichols (now Dezenhall Resources). From October 1998 until July 1999, Dezenhall paid BBI about $150,000 to work on the "U Street Project"—a reference to Greenpeace's then-headquarters on Washington's U Street. Dezenhall's chemical company client was particularly interested in campaigns targeting the manufacture and sale of plastics containing the polymer polyvinyl chloride. The objectives of the U Street operation, according to the complaint and internal BBI records, "explicitly included obtaining financial information about Greenpeace: 'funding'; '[d]onors: corporate political, private'; and 'money trails.'"
Meanwhile, BBI also launched a similar operation in Louisiana dubbed the "Lake Charles Project" to collect internal information on campaigns by Greenpeace and other environmental groups. For the Lake Charles operation, BBI relied heavily on a freelance "research consultant" namedMary Lou Sapone. She recruited a school teacher to infiltrate a local environmental groups, where he eventually become a board member. The Greenpeace complaint alleges that Sapone also "cased Greenpeace’s U Street Office while masquerading as a prospective campaign volunteer." In July 2008, Mother Jones revealed that Sapone, using her maiden name, McFate, had for more than a decade infiltrated the gun control groups on behalf of the National Rifle Association.
While BBI was working for Condea Vista, it also targeted Greenpeace on behalf of Dow. At the time, Greenpeace was aggressively campaigning against the spread of genetic engineered foods and was pushing to get the federal government to impose strict regulations on the industry. (Dow is a major player in this field.) The suit alleges that Dow hired the public relations firm Ketchum to keep tabs on the plans of its critics; the PR firm in turn employed BBI to spy on Greenpeace.
The complaint describes a July 1999 meeting in which representative of BBI, Ketchum, and Dow convened at an Annapolis, Maryland, hotel “to discuss the surveillance of Greenpeace and other environmental organizations critical of, or likely to criticize Dow Chemical." There, the BBI team "delivered a power-point presentation about Greenpeace which included confidential, prospective budget information and campaign plans." According to the complaint, Ketchum paid BBI more than $125,000 for confidential information on Greenpeace.
Dow Chemical, Ketchum, and Dezenhall Resources did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Informed of the law suit by Mother Jones, a Sasol North America spokeswoman said, "Wow." She then directed a reporter to a past statement by the company saying it had no comment on matters that occurred prior to Sasol taking ownership of Condea Vista in 2001.
On Monday, Greenpeace posted a "SpyGate" page on its website devoted to the lawsuit. "The purpose of this lawsuit is twofold," the group explained on its site. "First, we aim to put a dent in the arrogance of these corporate renegades who have for too long believed that ethics do not apply to their pursuit of ever-higher profits. Second, we believe it is every citizen's right to stand up for the health of their children and community without fearing retribution, an invasion of privacy, conspiracy against them or theft of their belongings. We believe Dow and Sasol conspired to do this to Greenpeace; we aim to stop this before it happens to you."
James Ridgeway is a senior correspondent at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get James Ridgeway's RSS feed.
Daniel Schulman is Mother Jones' Washington-based news editor. For more of his stories, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here. Email him at dschulman (at) motherjones.com. Get Daniel Schulman's RSS feed.

Link:  http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/greenpeace-sues-dow-sasol-dezenhall-ketchum-spying