Yesterday the Trump administration released its Clean Power Plan replacement, the Affordable Clean Energy Rule. One thing to look out for is how the rule treats PM2.5 health benefits from reducing coal use--whether it acknowledges the thousands of additional deaths caused by coal or not, E&E’s Jean Cheminick wrote.
On one side is basically all of the science not funded by polluters, and a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that says those lives should be included in a cost-benefit analysis. On the other side is the Trump administration using the arguments of pro-pollution lobbyist Steve Milloy, whom former EPA expert John Bachmann described as “full of shit.” Because the odds that the rule will survive the courts are approximately zero, today we’re going to focus where the real action is happening: at the state level.
New research from Dave Anderson at the Energy and Policy Institute revealed this week that American Electric Power, a major utility, uses ratepayer money to fund its membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy, a leading coal lobby group.
If it weren’t bad enough for the public’s electricity bills to reflect membership in an organization that releases blatantly misleading pro-coal propaganda, Anderson points out that AEP recognizes that this isn’t want the public wants, quoting AEP’s vice president for external affairs.
“All sectors of AEP Ohio customers are increasingly seeking renewable energy sources for their electricity supply,” AEP’s Tom Froehle recently said. (Apparently “let the poor go hungry” was not the winning message the anti-renewable crowd wanted to stick with.)
Bizarrely though, Froehle said this while testifying in support of an Ohio policy that would gut renewable support in exchange for massive subsidies for coal and nuclear plants. (Well, not so bizarre, given that AEP Ohio would reap some $207 million in subsidies for its coal plants by 2030.)
Clearly, then, pro-coal propaganda in the service of a bailout is in AEP’s best interest. But given that its customers are clamoring for coal, is its membership in ACCCE in its ratepayer’s best interest?
Apparently that’s a question for the individual state utility commissions which decide whether or not energy companies can charge ratepayers for the price of membership in ACCCE, per AEP’s response to EPI.
So what does the public get in exchange for funding ACCCE? Propaganda, for the most part. As Anderson points out, ACCCE has had a hand in a couple recent reports on energy costs that oh-so-coincidentally found ways to inflate the cost of renewables compared to coal, flying in the face of both similar studies conducted by more independent experts.
In other words, AEP customers are paying for polluter-propping-up-propaganda to try and convince them of something that’s against their best interest, a group that, like Steve Milloy, is just so full of shit.