AWEA emails

Update:4/6/10
Emails recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Shown by Charlie Martin ~ for the first ~ at the Pajamas Media blog ~ These emails show how political influence and lobbyists are shaping Obama administration policy and public relations.

Click the links below to read the FOIA request and the emails:

“Emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show how the Obama administration's Department of Energy is using the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) — the lobbying arm of “Big Wind” in the U.S. — to coordinate political responses with two strongly ideological activist groups: the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and the George Soros funded Center for American Progress (CAP).”

“The emails expose active coordination between the Obama administration, the DoE and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the AWEA. These emails show the Obama DoE using the AWEA as a conduit to both the CAP and the UCS, and taking steps to ensure that aspects of its coordination were not committed to paper (or email) because the emails might be revealed later.”

Click the links below to read the FOIA request and the emails:

FOIA request

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Examining the GreenJobsGate Emails: Obama Administration Takes Direction from Wind Lobby, Soros Group

The Department of Energy’s scientific conclusions were instigated — even dictated — by Big Wind’s lobbyists and leftists. Read here for the timeline and the key figures involved.

The emails show that the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) coordinated their response to a damning Spanish report on “green jobs” with wind industry lobbyists and the Center for American Progress (the progressive think tank founded by John Podesta and funded by George Soros).

The report from Spain’s Universidad Rey Juan Carlos — which was the subject of a George Will column in the Washington Post on June 25, 2009 — showed each “green job” that had been added by Spain’s aggressive wind energy program cost Spain nearly $800,000 and resulted in the loss of 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy.

Eight times, Obama had publicly referred to Spain’s program as being a model for a U.S. wind energy program.
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According to PJM there were 900 pages of emails that were obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Christopher C. Horner, show staff members from the DoE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the EPA developing a response to the report. They also show them coordinating the response with the Center for American Progress, plus the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) — two wind industry lobbyist groups.

What the emails show runs contrary to statements made to Congress by the Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi — the Obama administration response to the Spanish report was in fact instigated at the request of the AWEA. It was then written with the close cooperation of the AWEA, the Center for American Progress, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The emails concentrate on the political implications of the Spanish study — and how to discredit it.

There also appears to have been significant pressure to publish an internal report from the NREL as a DoE report — bypassing the internal review and publication procedures — and to do so quickly.

The emails suggest that wind industry lobbyists and political organizations have significant behind-the-scenes influence on scientific reports from the Obama administration. This contradicts Obama’s insistence that his administration would get the politics out of science. It also calls into question the objectivity and quality of the information they provided to Congress. MORE
Stay tuned to PJM and PJTV: Christopher Horner will break down the contents and the implications of the emails.

You can link to her blog here
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Sidebar:
NREL Launches Strategic Energy Analysis Institute.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has established a new global institute dedicated to analyzing, speeding and smoothing the transition to sustainable energy worldwide, including offshore wind development on the Great lakes.