Glenn Reynolds once wrote a book called An Army of Davids. Now there are an army of climate change lobbyists.
Everyone loves to hate lobbyists —after all, they seem to embody the special interests and shady dealings that underline the modern perception of politics. A lobbyist for Big Tobacco is about as loved as a killer of puppy dogs. But his station as 'most despicable political figure' could soon be supplanted—by the Climate Lobbyist. This newish breed lobbies against measures to fight climate change on behalf of the likes of oil, electricity, and coal firms. And their numbers are growing. There are now estimated to be around 2,340 climate lobbyists in Washington—more than one for every four members of Congress.
LOL - never heard the climate changers compared to Big Tobacco!
Anyway, all you evangelical climate deniers out there take heart - you have your own lobbyist.
As Congress debates clean-energy legislation, a conservative Christian group is ramping up lobbying efforts to raise questions about the science of climate change.
The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation Committee recently hired Shannon Royce, a 25-year veteran of conservative organizations including the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, as executive director.
"If you listen to the hype that you will hear in the media, you will hear that evangelicals really feel strongly about global warming, and the impression is that all evangelicals have bought into this global-warming bandwagon, and it simply is not true," Royce said in an interview on a Christian radio station in Chicago.
By the way, my sister and her husband have been lobbyists in state government for years. I really do get that such folks have their place in influencing policy.
UPDATE: WaTimes:
Democratic lawmakers who spent much of the Bush administration blasting officials for letting energy lobbyists write national policy have turned to a coalition of business and environmental groups to help draft their own sweeping climate bill.
And one little-noticed provision of the draft bill would give one of the coalition's co-founders a lucrative exemption on a coal-fired project it is building.
Hope, change, yada yada...
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