“Energy Independence”:

A Formula For Attacking Energy Productionby James Dellinger

January 2007CONTENTS

“Energy Independence”: A FormulaFor Attacking Energy Production

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Briefly Noted

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Summary: Environmentalist groups wantthe new Congress to reject common sensepolicies encouraging more domestic energyproduction to wean America off foreign en-ergy. Instead, green groups want to discour-age energy production and consumption ofthe most readily available sources: coal, oiland natural gas, because they generate car-bon dioxide (CO2), and nuclear, which pro-duces no CO2. For green groups, “energyindependence” seems to mean not depend-ing on energy! Will the new Congress yield

to their pressures?

Green groups say they want publicpolicies that will make the U.S. lessdependent on foreign energy

sources, but they oppose efforts to produceenergy using the natural resources in the U.S.that are most readily available. What’s wrongwith this picture?

At every turn, radical environmental orga-nizations block the creation of a domesticenergy infrastructure for the large-scale en-ergy-generating technologies (e.g. nuclearpower, coal, oil and natural gas) that havebeen proven cost-effective, efficient, andreliable. Instead, they champion technolo-gies that are not economically feasible with-out massive government subsidies (e.g. so-lar power, wind power). These groups pre-tend to support energy independence evenas they undermine energy development athome.

Environmental Defense (ED), the networkof Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs),the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC), the Apollo Alliance, Greenpeace,Earth Island Institute, Defenders of Wildlife,

the CERES investors’ network, RainforestAction Network (RAN), and the Sierra Clubare masters of obstruction. Well-connectedand well-funded, their power in Washingtonrests on a base of donors whose utopianvision of America’s future energy needs isradically at odds with the requirements of theAmerican public.

Add to this the issue of climate change. Forthe environmental movement, “global warm-ing” is yet another monkey wrench to throwat domestic energy development projects. Ifthe U.S. is to reduce its imports of foreign oiland its dependence on the Mideast, Venezu-ela and other troubled parts of the world, thenpolicymakers must support the expansion ofU.S. coal and nuclear facilities and the devel-opment of America’s own oil and natural gasreserves.

America needs hydrocarbon-based fuel.Neither greed nor lust nor addiction explainswhy America runs on coal, oil and naturalgas. The Energy InformationAdministration’s newly released AnnualEnergy Outlook 2007 states:

“Despite the projected rapid growth ofbiofuels and other non-hydroelectric renew-

Rainforest Action Network is one of several environmentalist groups that espouses“energy independence” while simultaneously opposing all new energy developmentthat actually decreases America’s dependence on foreign energy.

OrganizationTrends

2 January 2007

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able energies and the expectation of the firstnew orders for nuclear power plants in over25 years, oil, coal, and natural gas are none-theless projected to provide roughly the same86% share of the total U.S. primary energysupply in 2030 as they did in 2005…”

What Price “Energy Independence”? Since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970sAmerican pundits and politicians have tire-lessly urged the nation to end its dependenceon foreign energy sources. The calls for“energy independence” have only grownlouder and more frequent since the terroristattacks of 2001, and they were endorsed byPresident George W. Bush who flatly statedin his 2006 State of the Union address:“America is addicted to oil, which is oftenimported from unstable parts of the world.”

Regrettably, environmental groups believethis goal requires job-killing government regu-lations that will inflict long-term damage onthe U.S. economy and reliance on costly andunproven new technologies. Their pie-in-the-sky ideas are expensive and, if imple-mented, would do little to augment U.S. en-ergy supplies. Yet the mainstream mediauncritically echo the views of environmentalgroups that claim America’s energy prob-lems can be solved by installing millions ofsolar rooftop panels and micro windmills and

planting fields of switch grass. Quick to chal-lenge the motives of industry groups, themedia seldom question the green groups thatlobby for higher energy taxes, want limits onindustrial and household carbon emissions,and demand the removal of energy-produc-ing dams said to threaten endangered spe-cies.

Labor unions might be expected to rejectthis approach, but they too have bought intothe environmentalist view of “energy inde-pendence.” The AFL-CIO is eager to cementa political coalition against the Bush admin-istration, and unions like the United Steel-workers see prospects for job-creation-andunion-organizing-in many green policy pro-posals. (See the October 2006 Labor Watch,“The New Labor-Environmentalist Coalition:Blue and Green and Red All Over,” by RyanEllis, on the strategic alliance between theSierra Club and steelworkers.)

In the post 9-11 world, almost every groupclaims to be an advocate for “energy inde-pendence,” but that’s because each definesthe concept to its own benefit.

The Apollo Alliance for Good Jobs andClean Energy is an offshoot of the left-winggroup Campaign for America’s Future. Itsadvisory board is peppered with left-liberaland labor-backed officeholders and advo-cates, among them unsuccessful Californiagubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides,NAACP chairman Julian Bond, Steel Work-ers president Leo Gerard and the Sierra Club’sexecutive director, Carl Pope. The Allianceslogan: “Three million new jobs. No depen-dence on foreign oil.”

But industrial labor unions, neo-conserva-tive hawks and farm state Republicans havefigured out a way to work together to promote“energy independence,” which they arguewill save the environment, create jobs, pro-tect national security and support agricul-ture.

In March 2005 the Apollo Alliance an-nounced that it would conduct “joint efforts”with the conservative-leaning Set AmericaFree Coalition. The Coalition’s members in-clude Frank Gaffney of the Center for Secu-rity Policy, Mideast expert Dr. Daniel Pipes,former CIA director James Woolsey, Repre-sentative Jack Kingston (R-GA), Cliff May of

the Foundation for the Defense of Democra-cies, and former Republican presidential can-didate Gary Bauer. However, the Coalitionalso includes former Senators Tom Daschle(D-SD) and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), andChafee’s successor, Senator SheldonWhitehouse (D-RI). The tag-line for SetAmerica Free is “Cut dependence on foreignoil. Secure America.”

Set America Free urges Americans not tosettle for easy answers. When politiciansblame Big Oil, voters should tell them that it’sforeign governments that control most oilreserves. And when politicians mouth sup-port for alternative fuels to generate electric-ity, Set America Free urges voters to “remindthem that unlike in the 1970s, today only 2%of U.S. electricity is generated from oil, andthat most of our oil is consumed in the trans-portation sector - a good reason to encour-age plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”

Then there’s the Energy Security Leader-ship Council, a group of retired military offic-ers and corporate chiefs. It issued a state-ment in December calling for significantlytougher CAFE fuel efficiency standards, withthe goal of making America less dependenton foreign oil. The group is co-chaired byformer General P.X. Kelley, who was the top-ranked officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, andFrederick W. Smith, chief executive officer ofFedEx Corp.

Lawmakers have responded to such calls.In the 109th Congress RepresentativeKingston introduced H.R. 4409, the proposed“Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Se-curity Act,” a bill combining regulations andtax incentives to encourage automakers, farm-ers and consumers to reduce oil consump-tion by 20% in 20 years. In the House, 22 ofits 26 original co-sponsors were Republi-cans. Kingston, whose home state is a majorproducer of peanuts, also supports usingpeanuts to produce biodiesel fuel.

A companion measure, S. 2025, was intro-duced in the Senate by Indiana DemocratEvan Bayh. Five of its ten Senate co-spon-sors were Republicans, including Alabama’sJeff Sessions, Sam Brownback of Kansas,and Minnesota’s Norm Coleman. Said DeronLovaas of the NRDC, “This bill specifies theends but leaves flexible the means.” He re-gretted that the bill did not mandate the

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OrganizationTrends

tightening of CAFE fuel efficiency standards,but added the chilling observation: “Still, it’sa very ambitious mandate, somewhat like theClean Air Act in its breadth and the flexibilityof its interpretation.”

But keeping foreign energy out of Americais easier said than done. Despite efforts byOPEC member states to set high energy prices,as tradable commodities hydrocarbons (i.e.oil, natural gas, coal) and other energy re-sources instantly respond to changes insupply and demand in world markets. Advo-cacy groups that support real “energy inde-pendence” will favor public policies that al-low competition between energy sources,domestic and international. They will let themost efficiently priced sources generate buy-ers and sellers.

By contrast, the Apollo Alliance, the pri-mary umbrella group for progressives in thisfight, parrots a Malthusian line:

“Now America has an Apollo project for the21st century. Today the stakes are much,much higher. We face an economy hemor-rhaging its highest paying and most produc-tive jobs, cities falling apart with over a trilliondollars in unmet public investment in crum-bling schools, transportation, and infrastruc-ture. The middle class is increasingly inse-cure as career ladders are broken and notreplaced in new service sector jobs. And ona global scale we face never before seenenvironmental disruption, rising social ineq-uity, and the emergence of fundamentalistanger that threatens our very security.”

The Green Agenda:No Global Warming, No Nuclear Power Business groups will have their hands fulldealing with an onslaught of new energylegislation from the Democratic Congress.They are weighing the odds of their adversar-ies’ success and will cut deals to accommo-date green demands. Even Bush Republi-cans are reassessing their positions on theenvironment.

Global warming is one issue high on theDemocrats’ agenda. Truman Semans, direc-tor of markets and business strategy at thePew Center on Global Climate Change, toldthe Washington Post that, “at least half adozen of the companies that belong to thecenter’s Business Environmental Leadership

Council have recently hired staff membersfocused on global warming.”

Bush administration insiders seem ready todo something on global warming as well.GOP pollster Whit Ayres will conduct poll-ing and grassroots operations work for Envi-ronmental Defense, which also has hiredformer Bush communications aide TuckerEskew. Eskew embraced the green agenda aweek after the election, according to newsreports. “The president has indicated that a

market-based cap [on carbon emissions] ison his list of options. And it’s pretty high onthe list; it’s in second place,” he said.

Not surprisingly, former EPA director Chris-tine Todd Whitman is urging the president toturn himself inside-out:

“Bush must compromise and the Democratsmust meet him halfway. He has an opportu-nity in the next two years, but voluntaryprograms are not enough. There should be amandatory cap on emissions. The WhiteHouse has indicated they are willing to talk.The State of the Union address is the way tostate these views. The climate of politics hasto change. The president has an opportunityto work with the new Democratic leaders inCongress,” said Whitman, the former NewJersey governor.

California’s Barbara Boxer, who is slated toreplace Oklahoma’s James Inhofe as the newchairman of the Senate Environment and

Public Works Committee, has announcedhearings on global warming and climatechange legislation. She expects her bill willlook much like the law signed by CaliforniaGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Sep-tember. It is supposed to cut carbon emis-sions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, a 25%reduction.

Some green groups downplay expectationsfor the incoming Congress. Vicki Arroyo,director of policy analysis at the Pew Center,is cautious. The “incoming two-year Con-gress is relatively moderate,” said Arroyo,and it is “likelier to go for a gradualist ap-proach, implementing climate-friendly lawsthat nibble at President George W. Bush’svoluntary approach on carbon emissionsrather than bulldoze it away completely.”Such a tack “may not be as sweeping as, forexample, the EU [carbon] trading system…butit could lay the groundwork for a tradingsystem, for example, by requiring mandatoryreporting of greenhouse gas emissions.”

Similarly, the Sierra Club’s Pope warns,“Over the next two years I don’t think envi-ronmental policy is going to change radi-cally.” But he added, “I think the environmen-tal agenda and conversation will change radi-cally.”

Nuclear power is another priority issue formany environmental groups, and politiciansare targeting the Indian Point Energy Center,a nuclear power plant that opened in the1970s on the Hudson River in New York state.The plant generates 10% of the state’s elec-tricity.

The center’s operating license is currentlyup for renewal with the Nuclear RegulatoryCommission, which has provoked 70 groups,including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club andRobert F. Kennedy Jr.’s group Riverkeepers,to form a coalition to shut the plant down.They say Indian Point threatens public safetybecause it is located only 40 miles from“Ground Zero” in Manhattan and could betargeted by terrorists. The plant, owned byEntergy Corporation, is unnecessary, theysay, pointing to a report by the NationalAcademy of Sciences that claims that shut-ting down the plant would be relatively easyand inexpensive. Representative Nita Lowey(D-NY), who cites the risk that radiation couldbe released in the event of an accident or

Environmentalist crusaderRobert F. Kennedy Jr.

OrganizationTrends

4 January 2007

For frequent updates on environmental groups,nonprofits, foundations, and labor unions, check out the

CRC-Greenwatch Blog at

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terrorist attack, has said she is “thrilled” bythe report’s findings.

However, that’s not all the report says.Supporters of nuclear energy counter thatthe $1 million taxpayer-funded study statesthat shutting Indian Point would make elec-tricity more expensive, strain natural gas in-ventories, and increase greenhouse gases inthe atmosphere. Electricity demand is grow-ing so rapidly in the area that constructinganother power plant would be too onerousand time-consuming. Patrick Moore, aGreenpeace co-founder who left the group henow considers extremist, observes, “Anypolitician who doesn’t support Indian Pointis basically asking for more air pollution.”

This year Indian Point could pit two power-house New York politicians with presidentialambitions against each other. So far SenatorHillary Clinton has resisted pressure to comeout against the plant. But she demandstougher inspections and improved safetypolicies. By contrast, former New York Citymayor Rudy Giuliani strongly favors licenserenewal. “Indian Point is as safe as a facilitycan be,” said Giuliani, head of Giuliani Part-ners LLC, a security consulting firm he cre-ated in 2002. The state’s new governor, Demo-crat Eliot Spitzer, favors shutting down theplant.

Texas Hold ’Em--Coal In addition to shuttering current energyfacilities, environmentalists are also on acrusade to halt new facility construction, andcoal power is an attractive target of opportu-nity.

Here the greens’ hope for victory is fo-cused on an ambitious coal power develop-ment in Texas. Texas needs more electricitybecause it is the nation’s second fastest-growing state (after California). Now youmight think that advocates for energy inde-pendence would applaud a Texas-based com-pany that uses coal mined in-state to gener-ate electricity for its Texas customers. You

would be wrong.

Environmental Defense (ED), Texas PIRG,RAN, CERES and other groups are mobilizingto stop TXU Corporation’s plans to invest$11 billion to build up to eleven new coal-firedelectricity-generating plants. It will spend$2.5 billion on environmental technologyupgrades and create 14,000 permanent jobs.

In its effort to bring affordable power toTexas, TXU is even willing to sign on to partof the greens’ campaign by offering to com-bat carbon emissions. TXU officials say thecompany supports “a comprehensive, vol-untary, technology-based approach to glo-bal climate change based on carbon intensitythat is both flexible and cost effective.”

But even that proposal is rejected by envi-ronmentalists, who prefer a command-and-control approach over voluntary technol-ogy-based emission reductions.

According to ED spokesman Colin Rowan,“We are at a point in time where other statesand businesses are starting to take globalwarming seriously. California is heading to-ward the future, and TXU and Texas aresprinting full speed back to the 1950s.” Ofcourse, Rowan failed to mention that accord-ing to the Energy Information Administra-tion California’s electricity is among the mostexpensive in the lower 48 states, and that itspower will be even more expensive thanks toSchwarzenegger’s global warming initiative.

Environmentalists aim to prevent TXU fromsecuring financing for the project. RAN hassent letters to 54 financial institutions askingthem not to lend money for the project. Theletters are but a first step. Should any bank beso bold as to give TXU a loan it can expect tobe vilified, subjected to boycott threats, share-holder protests and political pressure. (See“Rainforest Action Network,” in the May2005 Organization Trends). RAN has urgedreaders of its blog to email TXU. “Let’s start

by turning up the heat on TXU-Write TXUCEO John Wilder an email and tell him climateprotection MUST trump corporate greed orwe’re all cooked.”

Unfortunately, these pressure tactics ap-pear increasingly effective in changing cor-porate attitudes. According to a recent Con-ference Board survey reported by CFO Maga-zine in December, anti-lending campaignsconducted by CERES and RAN againstprojects they deem not environmentally-friendly are working. Such tactics have be-come standard operating procedure for ob-structionist groups, writes John Berlau in anew book, Eco-Freaks (Nelson Current, 2006).

2006 Hits and Misses Last year environmentalist groups foughtmany different battles in their attempt to forceAmerica to be carbon-free. The groups scoredmany hits but had their share of misses.

The California bellwether. In the fall elec-tion Defenders of Wildlife spent at least$500,000 through its affiliated 527 group in itssuccessful campaign to unseat propertyrights champion Representative RichardPombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Re-sources Committee in the 109th Congress.Pombo was defeated by Democrat JerryMcNerney, a wind turbine entrepreneur.

But California’s Proposition 87, a measureto impose an extraction tax on California oilproducers, was defeated at the polls. Eventhe liberal Los Angeles Times editorializedagainst the measure, saying the measure“defies Econ 101 principles.” The newspaperlabeled the proposed levy an “extortion tax.”Hollywood playboy producer Steve Bing, amajor Democratic Party donor, spent nearly$50 million of his own money promoting theballot initiative. Famed venture capitalist andethanol enthusiast Vinod Khosla also con-tributed to the losing cause.

Wind power. On the East coast, NRDC’sRobert F. Kennedy Jr. created some conster-nation by opposing the Cape Wind Project,which would replace an old coal power plantwith non-CO2 emitting offshore wind power.It seems the Kennedy family summers inHyannisport, Cape Cod, and the 130-turbinewind-power project would be built in Horse-shoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, south of theCape. It’s probably the only wind project

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OrganizationTrends

RFK Jr. has opposed.

Kennedy opposes the project on estheticgrounds. In an op-ed, he wrote that“[h]undreds of flashing lights to warn air-planes away from the turbines will steal thestars and nighttime views. The noise of theturbines will be audible onshore ... [and] theproject will damage the views from 16 historicsites and lighthouses on the cape and nearbyislands.” Greenpeace and other groups haveassailed Kennedy for his elitist hypocrisy.

The U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2006 theU.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case,Massachusetts v. EPA, on whether EPA hasthe power to regulate CO2 emissions fromautomobiles. Environmentalists hope the highcourt will give the agency a power it does notthink it should have but that future EPAappointees would be able to use to imposerestrictions on carbon emissions -- whetheror not the U.S. signs the Kyoto Protocol. Thehigh court heard oral arguments November29 and is expected to render a decision thisyear.

Iain Murray of the Competitive EnterpriseInstitute warns that a decision for the plain-tiffs (Massachusetts and 11 other states,New York City, Washington, D.C. and nu-merous other petitioners from green advo-cacy groups) would mean that “some 70% ofthe electricity industry and 98% of the trans-portation industry - indeed the entire U.S.economy - would have to submit to regula-tion even more draconian than that set out inthe greenhouse gas-limiting Kyoto Protocolto the United Nations Framework Conven-tion on Climate Change.”

Murray further points out that U.S. air qual-ity is affected by countries that don’t carehow much carbon dioxide their factories emit:“California’s air is affected by belching smoke-stacks and new cars in the rapidly growingeconomies of China and India, nations thatare exempt from the Kyoto Protocol. Even ifwe reduced our CO2 emissions to zero, our airmight still violate standards.”

Biofuels: Many environmental groups hailethanol as the fuel of the future and the keyto energy independence, even though it isexpensive to produce and yields fewer milesper gallon than gasoline. But a funny thinghappened on the way to the farm. As more

and more farm state Republicans begin totout ethanol’s virtues, the more reluctantsome green advocates are to endorse it.

An odd mix of free trade supporters, socialjustice campaigners and environmentalistshas come out against ethanol. These strangebedfellows warn that increased reliance onethanol could increase world hunger.Worldwatch Institute founder Lester Brown,now president of the Earth Policy Institute,complains that ramped-up ethanol produc-tion would cause grain scarcity: “The grainrequired to fill an SUV tank,” he told theWashington Post, “could feed one personfor one year.” Although biofuel productionfattens the wallets of Midwestern grain farm-ers, it puts upward price pressure on foodcommodities, which makes it much more dif-ficult for poor people abroad to feed them-selves. “By the end of 2007,” Brown wrote ina recent newsletter, “the emerging competi-tion between the 800 million automobile own-ers who want to maintain their mobility andthe world’s 2 billion poorest people who wantsimply to survive will be on center stage.”

Oxfam and other humanitarian groups andenvironmental groups such as the Environ-mental Working Group (EWG) have joinedwith free-market think tanks such as the Com-petitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to push forcutting farm subsidies. EWG’s online FarmSubsidy Database is perhaps the most com-prehensive list of government farm subsidiesand their recipients. In 2007 the five-year farmbill is up for reauthorization, and it will beinteresting to see whether a left-right coali-tion emerges to fight the farm subsidy lobby.Market-oriented scholars like Hudson Insti-

tute senior fellow Dennis Avery refer to etha-nol as “deathanol” because they agree thatits widespread production may lead to mas-sive worldwide food scarcity.

Conclusion In 2007 it appears the environmentalist move-ment may be caught in a Catch-22 of its ownmaking. The old warriors against energy con-sumption are running up against a new breedof environmentalists who look to high tech-nology. They endorse promising new tech-nologies such as plug-in hybrid vehicles thatoperate on both gasoline and electricity. Bytouting the benefits of hybrids, they arguethat gasoline consumption can be cut andAmerica will be less reliant on overseas oil.

But if Americans switch to plug-in hybridvehicles, they will need more electricity, andif it doesn’t come from foreign oil then it willhave to come from domestic sources -- eitherhated fossil fuels, dreaded nuclear power, or“deathanol.”

And there’s the rub.

Reducing foreign energy dependency willinevitably force Americans to increase theircoal and natural gas-based electricity gen-eration, which in turn will increase CO2 emis-sions unless there is a breakthrough in tech-nology. The feds can’t mandate technologi-cal innovation. The environmentalists don’twant nuclear-powered transportation. And,as much as greens yearn for it, our planes,trains and automobiles can’t be powered bywindmills.

James Dellinger is Executive Director ofGreenWatch and EducationWatch at Capi-tal Research Center.

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BrieflyNotedThe Federal Election Commission fined three 527 groups —Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, theMoveOn.org Voter Fund, and the League of Conservation Voters 527 and 527 II—a total of $629,500 forelectioneering in 2004. The FEC found that the veterans “expressly advocated” the defeat of presidential candi-date John Kerry in ads and direct mail, while the LCV advocated Kerry’s election and the defeat of PresidentGeorge W. Bush through voter canvassing. MoveOn made TV ads targeting Bush. If the 527 groups, whichmay receive unlimited contributions but are not allowed to advocate for candidates or coordinate activities withthem, wanted to become involved in the election campaign as advocates, they should have registered aspolitical action committees and filed the required disclosure statements, the FEC said December 13. “The lawis unconscionably vague,” Swift Boat founder Roy Hoffman reportedly said.

After winning the Maryland governorship, Democrat Martin O’Malley turned to fat-cat trial lawyer John P.Coale for a loan to cover a $500,000 campaign debt, the Washington Post reported. The half-million dollar debtappears to be a record for a Maryland political campaign. Coale, husband of Fox News anchor Greta VanSusteren, is the ambulance-chaser who filed vexatious lawsuits against the gun industry and who took millionsin fees from the $200 billion-plus national tobacco settlement of 1997. He was also the first U.S. lawyer to arrivein Bhopal, India, to scout for clients following the Union Carbide disaster of 1984. O’Malley is the guitar-playingpolitician who as mayor of Baltimore called President Bush a terrorist in February 2005 for proposing to reducefederal aid for cities.

Incredibly, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it “probably” will include the Michigan State Universitychapter of the conservative group Young Americans for Freedom on its list of so-called hate groups. Such alisting would make YAF, which was founded in 1960 by M. Stanton Evans and William F. Buckley Jr., the firstuniversity-recognized hate group in the nation, Heidi Beirich, assistant director of the SPLC’s IntelligenceProject told the Lansing City Pulse. The SPLC, which maintains that race relations today are worse than in thedays of Jim Crow, was profiled in the November issue of Organization Trends.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is working overtime to transform itself into a bastion of politically correct political andsocial causes, according to the National Legal and Policy Center. “Political correctness is nothing new incorporate America, but it is truly breathtaking how quickly Wal-Mart is becoming a tool of the left under CEO H.Lee Scott,” said NLPC President Peter Flaherty. Under Scott, Wal-Mart has mandated numerical quotas forthe hiring of minorities and women, placed Jesse Jackson associate Christopher Williams on its board, andis financially supporting gay rights groups advocating same-sex marriage. The company is also bullying its60,000 suppliers to adopt its environmental standards, a move even the Sierra Club has dismissed as ineffec-tive, according to a new NLPC report. Wal-Mart hired left-wing spin doctor Leslie Dach back in July and sincethen he has helped the company ramp up its cynically calculated capitulations to the left.

Joe Kennedy, a former Massachusetts congressman and son of the late anti-communist Senator Robert F.Kennedy, is appearing on television commercials backing Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, an ally ofIran, North Korea, and Cuba. Head of nonprofit Citizens Energy Corporation, a beaming Kennedy touts thebenefits of discounted home heating oil supplied by Chavez-controlled CITGO, saying the fuel comes “from ourfriends in Venezuela.”

Capital Research Center President Terrence Scanlon signed a letter December 12 with 41 leaders of otherconservative groups urging President Bush to “publicly and forcefully repudiate proposals to increase taxes inany plan to reform Social Security.”