On Sunday the Oregonian reported that a lobby group fighting against climate action in the state includes a number of members that otherwise profess to support climate policies, including the University of Oregon.
The Alliance of Western Energy Consumers, or AWEC, was created in 2018 after the merger of two other groups focused on Northwest utilities and gas customers. AWEC’s natural gas director told the Oregonian that the group is focused on doing ratepayer advocacy aimed at public utility commissions. And that’s similar to what University of Oregon officials claimed was the reason for their involvement, telling the paper that their membership is “purely to aid in projecting costs for natural gas.”
But in practice, the banal-sounding defense of ratepayers turns out to be a pretty heavy-handed attack on the state’s attempts to reduce emissions. We know that because they declared the delay of a cap and trade bill as a victory in FOIA’d documents. What’s more, not only did UO know full well that the group was opposed to the legislation, but they also attempted to hide that information when responding to FOIA requests.
This deception became clear when the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), another member of AWEC, responded to another request. OHSU provided the same documents as UO, but unlike UO, didn’t redact the information regarding AWEC’s climate policy antagonism. We know members are well aware of what the group is spending their dues on: attacking the very policies some members are publically embracing.
What does UO have to say about that? Well the school’s utility manager, Tony Hardenbrook, was clear in emails to AWEC that he didn’t want the university’s name on AWEC materials. When asked by the Oregonian to discuss the issue, he said has “nothing to hide.” Apparently the university disagreed, because it wouldn’t allow him to be further interviewed by the paper.
Schools in the Pacific Northwest are far from the group’s only members, though. Charlie Spatz of the Climate Investigations Center (who filed the FOIA’d documents and provided them to the Oregonian) expands on the hypocrisy of some of the group’s other members in a series of tweets, highlighting the contrast between the nominally pro-climate positions of AWEC members Intel, Microsoft, Johnson Controls and Shell. Both Spatz and the Oregonian mention that Microsoft (which is already facing criticism for its oil-exploiting business ventures) left ALEC over its climate denial in 2014.
And it certainly makes sense that respectable businesses and Universities wouldn’t want to be associated with AWEC. After all, a university is a place for science and facts, whereas AWEC is the kind of group that invites Alex Epstein to its annual conference (held with the Northwest Gas Association). Epstein, you may remember, is the so-called “climate thinker” and “I heart fossil fuels” guy who gets paid by the fossil fuel industry to claim that the industry is actually very good and moral, and not knowingly destroying civilization for profit.
AWEC told the Oregonian it invited Epstein not because of his climate denial (which statements indicate it shares) but instead because it sought out “a provocative speaker who’d make a stink.”
Question is, do Microsoft, Intel, or the University of Oregon want that stink on it?
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