
Thousands of protesters were gathering outside the Manchester Grand Hyatt to protest ALEC this week in San Diego. (Photo: Diane Takvorian/Times of San Diego)
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Thousands of protesters were gathering outside the Manchester Grand Hyatt to protest ALEC this week in San Diego. (Photo: Diane Takvorian/Times of San Diego)
With most of America enduring major heat waves this week, mild and sunny San Diego is not a bad place to be -- especially if you want to ignore climate change and block clean energy solutions. Turns out that's where polluting companies and conservative state lawmakers are gathering right now for the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual summer conference. ALEC, funded by industry interests like Peabody Coal and the Koch brothers, is hosting the typical round of closed-door discussions for polluter lobbyists to write model bills for legislators.
This past year has left ALEC in crisis mode - it lost nearly all of its state battles against climate action, while a growing number of high-profile members like Google and Facebook have cut ties over ALEC's climate denial positions.
But despite these major fails, ALEC's draft conference agenda indicates that its crisis-management strategy is to stay the familiar course: defend polluters, hinder clean energy development, and obstruct climate solutions. ALEC isn't even coming up with interesting new schemes to stymie progress -- it is simply adding new twists on the tired polluter strategies that have already flopped. Here's a quick look at some of the model bills up for discussion this week:
We will have to wait until the end of the ALEC conference to see which of these draft bills win approval as official ALEC model legislation. But there is no waiting required to see that ALEC is still the same old organization pushing the same old polluter agenda.
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With most of America enduring major heat waves this week, mild and sunny San Diego is not a bad place to be -- especially if you want to ignore climate change and block clean energy solutions. Turns out that's where polluting companies and conservative state lawmakers are gathering right now for the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual summer conference. ALEC, funded by industry interests like Peabody Coal and the Koch brothers, is hosting the typical round of closed-door discussions for polluter lobbyists to write model bills for legislators.
This past year has left ALEC in crisis mode - it lost nearly all of its state battles against climate action, while a growing number of high-profile members like Google and Facebook have cut ties over ALEC's climate denial positions.
But despite these major fails, ALEC's draft conference agenda indicates that its crisis-management strategy is to stay the familiar course: defend polluters, hinder clean energy development, and obstruct climate solutions. ALEC isn't even coming up with interesting new schemes to stymie progress -- it is simply adding new twists on the tired polluter strategies that have already flopped. Here's a quick look at some of the model bills up for discussion this week:
We will have to wait until the end of the ALEC conference to see which of these draft bills win approval as official ALEC model legislation. But there is no waiting required to see that ALEC is still the same old organization pushing the same old polluter agenda.
With most of America enduring major heat waves this week, mild and sunny San Diego is not a bad place to be -- especially if you want to ignore climate change and block clean energy solutions. Turns out that's where polluting companies and conservative state lawmakers are gathering right now for the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual summer conference. ALEC, funded by industry interests like Peabody Coal and the Koch brothers, is hosting the typical round of closed-door discussions for polluter lobbyists to write model bills for legislators.
This past year has left ALEC in crisis mode - it lost nearly all of its state battles against climate action, while a growing number of high-profile members like Google and Facebook have cut ties over ALEC's climate denial positions.
But despite these major fails, ALEC's draft conference agenda indicates that its crisis-management strategy is to stay the familiar course: defend polluters, hinder clean energy development, and obstruct climate solutions. ALEC isn't even coming up with interesting new schemes to stymie progress -- it is simply adding new twists on the tired polluter strategies that have already flopped. Here's a quick look at some of the model bills up for discussion this week:
We will have to wait until the end of the ALEC conference to see which of these draft bills win approval as official ALEC model legislation. But there is no waiting required to see that ALEC is still the same old organization pushing the same old polluter agenda.