Corporate astroturfing: climate change edition

In Anchorage, we saw astroturfing during the Proposition 64 rallies when church groups bused in religious fanatics from the Mat-Su Valley to artificially inflate the antis’ numbers. Nationally, we’ve been witnessing astroturfing at health care town hall meetings when insurance companies bus in people from out of town and out of state to artificially inflate the antis’ numbers. Now, astroturfing has made another appearance: the American Petroleum Institute is organizing rallies to oppose climate change legislation in Congress.

The API was caught red-handed when a memo laying out all the tactical details was caught by Greenpeace and distributed to reporters. The memo specifically states that API will be organizing “Energy Citizen” rallies in 20 states. Energy Citizens is an allegedly “grassroots” organization associated with, among other organizations, FreedomWorks (known for its role in health care astroturfing). API’s memo defines the objective of the rallies thus: “to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy.”

Apparently the only “human face” they can muster is a mask, though. The memo goes on to list companies who have “pledged to have their membership join in the events in states where they have a strong presence” and request that other API affiliates compel their employees to attend these rallies – after all, these rallies will only succeed with “turnouts of several hundred [diverse] attendees… expressing the same message.” If that isn’t a call to create an artificial face on the opposition, I don’t know what is. At the end of the memo, the issue of transportation comes up; specifically, it’s stated that API will help coordinate transportation to and from these events.

So thus far, we know that API is busing oil company employees in to stand around at rallies pretending that they’re the real face of the opposition. But hey, we aren’t supposed to know about this! “Please treat this information as sensitive,” the memo’s writer, API President Jack Gerard, pleads. “We don’t want critics to know our game plan.” Could that be because if we knew that there was astroturfing going on, there would be hell to pay?

This comes less than a month after DC lobbying firm Bonner and Associates got busted for sending forged letters to Congressmen urging them to oppose the climate change bill. The group sent a total of six letters to Tom Perriello (D-VA) alone, sometimes claiming to be from the NAACP and other times from a nonprofit Hispanic-interest group called Creciendo Juntos. Each time, Bonner and Associates fabricated a name and position with which to sign the letter; the groups who were impersonated are reasonably furious.

Bonner and Associates, TPMmuckraker notes, is a pioneer in “strategic grassroots” movements, better known as astroturfing. Rather than revealing the extent of their lies, Bonner chose to disclose only that it fired the employee responsible for the forged letters. The Daily Progress reports that Bonner and Associates has been in hot water for astroturfing before; in 2006 it “hired callers to identify themselves as members of the 60 Plus Association and urge residents to ask their governors to veto” prescription drug legislation in New Mexico and Minnesota. Pfizer was responsible for the campaign.

These are desperate moves. Petroleum companies know that they’re in trouble, because Americans are becoming more environmentally conscious and less sympathetic to Big Oil corporations that are willing to pollute the planet to protect the bottom line. Their last line of defense is to deceive real Americans who care about their environment into thinking that they’re the powerless minority. The petroleum companies are driven to deceit because they’re so politically weak; if we make a real push for the passage of this climate change bill right now, there’s nothing they can do to impede our progress.