Messaging Consistency – There were three Congressional hearings on climate disinformation last week, and these same 12 pro-fossil-fuel talking points made their way into all of them

Source: Messaging Consistency

There were three Congressional hearings on climate disinformation last week, and these same 12 pro-fossil-fuel talking points made their way into all of them

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Message 1: Environmental Groups Are Actually The Ones Spreading Disinfo

This tremendous whatabout-ism showed up in every hearing, multiple times, it was the most consistently used message across the board. Here are a few choice examples:

• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo) in the House Natural Resources Committee hearing on the PR industry’s role in climate disinfo: “I really just want to know, why isn’t the committee issuing subpoenas for PR firms that offer support for the climate change lobby, like the Sierra Club, who has repeatedly assured us that the genocidal Chinese Communist Party, even while they murder millions of people in concentration camps, is actually quite interested in working with the Democrats’ climate change agenda.”
• Michael Shellenberger (Republican witness, head of Environmental Progress) in the House Oversight Committee Hearing on Climate Disinformation: “As for misinformation about climate change and energy, it is rife on all sides, and I question whether the demands for censorship by big tech firms are being made in good faith.”
• Rep Nancy Mace (R-SC) in the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties hearing about free speech attacks on environmentalists: “We should also be talking about the administration’s decision to resume the undemocratic practice of sue and settle at the EPA, which allows special interest groups to make rules through lawsuits instead of the rulemaking process. This prevents the voices of Americans from being heard by removing them from rulemaking process while allowing environmental groups to have more say in policy than the American public. And don’t get me started on the racket of lawsuits by environmental groups here today.

Message 2: Tackling Disinformation Is a Violation of the First Amendment

A very close second to “what about environmentalists,” this false equivalence between disinformation and protected free speech turned up in every hearing too. Amy Cooke, head of the John Locke Foundation, and the Republican witness in the PR hearing led the charge here, bringing up this argument a total of five times during her 15 minutes or so of testimony. “More information is freedom,” she said in her opening testimony. “Americans, including those in the energy and environmental policy space, are rightfully troubled by the growing threat that their speech will be shut down by those who sit in politically powerful positions.”

Message 3: California Is a Disaster!

In the same way that Republicans talked about the pandemic as a preview of climate action, California has become the right’s cautionary tale for what happens when you have an “over-reliance” on renewables. A talking point that fell apart towards the end of the House Oversight Committee hearing on climate disinformation, when Rep Pete Sessions (R-TX) asked why California “is where it is after 25 years of attacking oil and fossil fuels,” and witness J. Mijin Cha calmly walked him through the fact that—uh oh!—California’s grid has held strong this year despite multi-day massive heatwaves.  

Cha: “…in fact, in our last extreme weather event, the grid did not fail. There was an adequate demand demand response that made sure that the grid didn’t fail and that electricity was provided to all the residents in California.”

Rep Sessions: Well, that may be true, but there was a vast outreach to please don’t use the power supply.

Cha: Only at the peak moments of demand and most electric vehicles charge overnight. And the grid again did not fail.

Rep Sessions: Peak demands were all day, as I recall. Don’t use your car.

Cha: No. Actually, I live in California and the notice that we got was that you should cool your house during the day and then around from 4 to 9, try not to use household appliances.

Rep Sessions: Okay. So why would that be after 25 years worth of building in a future for green energy? Why did. Why why are we doing this?

Cha: Again, California is also an oil and gas state, so they have not made as much advancements in renewable energy as they could have. And also, again, we had sat ten days in a row of 120 degree temperatures. So we had a demand on the grid that was much larger than usual. And again, the grid did not fail.

Unfortunately Cha wasn’t there to debunk this thread in every hearing, because not only was the scepter of California and its renewables-addled failing grid raised over and over again, but it was brought up in all three hearings in exactly the same way, by both Republican politicians and their witnesses.