Template:ALEC News

ALEC News

Major Electric Utility Dumps ALEC over Clean Power Plan 270 The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has suffered the loss of another major corporate sponsor, the Guardian reported Tuesday, with the electric utility American Electric Power (AEP) announcing it will no longer provide the climate change denial group with funding from 2016. AEP becomes the 107th identified corporation to have withdrawn funding since the Center for Media and Democracy launched the ALEC Exposed project in 2011, joining others such as Shell, BP, Google, Microsoft and Facebook. The loss of AEP will be particularly troubling for ALEC. AEP lobbyist Paul Loeffelman is still listed on the ALEC website as the private sector chairman for the group's Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force. This task force is the arm of ALEC promoting climate change denial to state legislators and driving its anti-environmental agenda. Read the rest of this item here. Koch-Funded Special Interest Groups and Utilities Bankrolling ALEC Meeting 270 Koch-funded groups and utilities are bankrolling ALEC's closed-door winter meeting and parties for state legislators that are underway in Scottsdale, Arizona, at a luxury resort and spa. The three-day gathering is bringing together lobbyists and legislators to plan their 2016 bill agenda for the upcoming legislative session. Koch-funded underwriters of the corporate bill mill's meeting includes the State Policy Network ("Chair's level" for $50,000); Frontiers of Freedom ("Vice Chair's level" for $25,000), and the Texas Public Policy Foundation ("Trustee's level" for $5,000), which recently hosted a conference of its own where numerous climate deniers criticized government action to address climate change. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC Works to Scuttle Global Climate Agreement 270 Two conferences are taking place this week 5,438 miles apart. The agendas could not be more different. The stakes could not be any higher. In Paris,120 world leaders are meeting under the auspices of the United Nations in an urgent effort to prevent catastrophic climate change, which threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions around the globe. In Arizona, global fossil fuel companies and giant utility firms will go behind closed doors with American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) politicians in a continued effort to derail any global agreement with state lawsuits designed to sink President Obama’s Clean Power Plan with cement boots. Read more here.