Template:ALEC News

ALEC News

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. ALEC Invites Politicians to "Plan Your 2016 Agenda" at ALEC Confab in Scottsdale 270 This year, the American Legislative Exchange Council's winter meeting, which it calls the "States and Nation Policy Summit," will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa from December 2-4. ALEC has promoted this event as an invitation for legislators to use the meeting to "plan your 2016 agenda." In Arizona, ALEC lawmakers will hear from a number of prominent speakers in corporate-sponsored plenary sessions and workshops, then retreat into "task force" meetings to vote as equals on "model bills" with corporate lobbyists and special interest groups. Read the rest of this item here. CMD Submits Evidence of Exxon Mobil Funding ALEC’s Climate Change Denial to NY Attorney General 270 The Center for Media and Democracy, a national watchdog group exposing corporate influence on democracy, has submitted evidence to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman showing how Exxon Mobil has promoted climate change denial through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). CMD believes this information is relevant to the landmark investigation into whether Exxon Mobil deceived its shareholders and the public about the impact that burning fossil fuels has on climate change. CMD has identified at least $1,730,200 in funding from Exxon Mobil to ALEC between 1998 and 2014, based on publicly available disclosures, although the actual total is likely higher. CMD has documented Exxon funding for ALEC at least as early as 1981. This funding makes Exxon Mobil one of ALEC's biggest financial supporters as ALEC has promoted legislation, resolutions, presentations, and publications seeking to stop efforts to address climate change, and has indoctrinated thousands of state legislators with the idea that "a great deal of scientific uncertainty" surrounds the science of climate change and that carbon emissions "may even be beneficial." Read the rest of this item here.