The climate lobby ecosystem
One brief look at the flourishing, deeply rooted system
Some weeks ago, The Economist highlighted a burgeoning “climate lobbying ecosystem” that has taken root in Washington DC. According to the article, the reason for this new ecosystem is the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in mid August of last year,
The law funnels at least $369bn in direct subsidies and tax credits to decarbonisation-related sectors. It came on the heels of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which also shovels billions in subsidies towards clean infrastructure. Some of the provisions offer generous tax credits, with no caps on the amount of spending eligible for the incentives. A mad investment rush, should it materialise, could lead to public expenditure of $800bn over the next decade. An official at a big utility says her firm has projects in the works across America that, if successful, will secure a staggering $2bn in funding from the two laws. “We stopped counting…we just have a big smile on our faces all the time these days,” confesses the renewables firm’s government-relations man.
The article documents how lobbyists targeted congress in the development of the IRA and have now turned to the executive branch: in the White House where John Podesta “makes the final call” on climate and energy matters, and the agencies responsible for rule setting especially, the Treasury Department,
“We are Treasury whisperers,” boasts the top government-relations expert at a climate-tech fund.
So too, is there intense pressure on the Department of Energy where $400 billion in loans needs to be spent by the end of 2024.
Lobbying is an important part of democracy and, ideally, it ensures that policymaking effectively addresses problems. But, for a very long time (so long) it has been recognized that what starts off as a healthy exercise in democratic governance can (de)volve into an antithesis of democracy. “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man,” said James Madison, so there are some rules aimed at “controlling its effects.”
According the OECD, these rules are falling short. Traditional conceptions of lobbying captured in regulation is no longer sufficient leaving much of the gamut of lobbying activities unchecked,
The definition [of lobbying] usually used in regulations – an oral or written communication between a lobbyist and a public official to influence legislation, policy or administrative decisions – is no longer sufficient. Mechanisms and channels of influence have become more diverse, which can lead to abuse. Increasingly, government policies can be influenced by and through non-governmental organisations (NGOs), research centres and think tanks, and the use of social media strategies to inform, misinform or change public perceptions. This can damage trust in both governments and those influencing the policy-making process, particularly companies.
Relationship building is as vital to lobbying as information sharing, some might say, relationships are even more important.
In one study, economist Marianne Bertrand and colleagues conclude that a lobbyist’s value is found less in their technical expertise than in their interpersonal networking expertise: “lobbyists connected to a given politician are valuable because they have a deep knowledge of that politician’s constituency.”
As such, the glue that holds together a special interest monopoly is a dynamic system of conflicts of interests forming a “community of shared assumptions.”
For instance, below is a Revolving Door Open Secretes graph of Brian Deese, former Assistant to the President and Director of the National Economic Council. He did that job after spending time with BlackRock as Global Head of Sustainable Investing, advising Obama on climate and energy, and working with Podesta at the Center for American Progress. Among some other valuable stints.
Deese was “indispensable in crafting and negotiating” the Inflation Reduction Act.
Of course he was.
Research and lobbying is a complicated affair.
When an advocacy group produces a research report one assumes that the report is intended to support a specific agenda. This is less obvious in the peer reviewed literature though, especially with the rather shallow (outside of biomedical) journal COI statement requirements.
Here is one example…
The individual above pointing out Deese’s value in the development of the IRA is Fred Krupp head of the Environmental Defense Fund since 1984.
Last week, Krupp appeared before the Senate Committee on the Budget presenting testimony warning against allowing repeals of IRA programs during debt ceiling negotiations. Krupp was especially concerned about any repeals of the IRA’s MERP, the Methane Emissions Reduction Program.
In urging the importance of the program, Krupp makes the following claim,
Peer-reviewed science shows swift cuts in methane across sectors, including oil and gas, could slow our current rate of warming by 30%.
The claim comes from a paper in ERL published in May 2021. Here is the title and authors.
It was very influential and to date, has been downloaded over 35,000 times.
I think it buries the lede on the sensitivity analysis it ran in justification of its use of RCP 8.5. The focus of the paper is on rate of warming, which the last paragraph in 16 pages of supplemental info shows is pretty sensitive to scenario choice.
If that had been made more of focus, one could sit in front of Congress and claim to be able to slow warming by 45%, not just 30%.
In any case, the climate lobby ecosystem is illustrated in the backgrounds of the authors and some of its funding.
At least five of the 9 authors are affiliated with EDF even though some don’t mention it.
EDF has a substantial business interest.
Hamburg is the Executive Director of MethaneSat, a wholly owned subsidiary (LLC) of EDF, providing satellite monitoring of methane emissions. The project is one of the original recipients of the Bezos Earth Fund, $100 million.
EDF lobbies. Not surprising as one of the nation’s leading environmental organizations, but worth noting because of its substantial business interest.
In 2020, it put $8.9million towards lobbying and moved another $8.7million into its lobbying sister organization, EDF Action. EDF also runs a super pac or two.
EDF has 4 lobbying reports on record for 2022 with the Department of Energy.
It also has 5 reports with the Environmental Protection Agencies which is interesting because part of Krupp’s testimony was about how what Congress really needs- or rather what the EPA needs- is better methane monitoring.
Hsiang-Simons Foundation provided some funding for the research.
Mark Heising of the research funding Hsiang-Simons Foundation is chair of the EDF board.
Both the Hsiang-Simons Foundation and its lobbying arm, Heising-Simons Action Fund, provides financial support to EDF and EDF Action.
Pacala sits on the board of EDF and is an adviser to an ESG firm. His research program at Princeton receives funding from BP- an oil company that supports government regulation of methane emissions.
Hristov developed a feed additive (3-NOP, commercial name: Bovaer) with DSM, a biotechnology firm, that reduces methane emissions from dairy cattle.
Approval for use in the US has been sitting with the FDA for several years and DSM is putting pressure on the Biden administration for expedited approval in the name of climate change.
There is nothing in the paper to indicate that web of financial interests that stand to benefit from the problem-solution pairing. This is all before we look at other connections some in the group share.
And where are they now?
Hamburg and Shindell have seats on the Climate Change Committee of the EPA Scientific Advisory Board. Shindell was named chair.
Pacala has a spot on the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
And, this past February, Hristov received a $2 million USDA grant for research on 3-NOP. (Elanco, an animal pharmaceutical company, acquired exclusive US licensing rights to Bovaer in 2022).
This is just one small example. What is shaping up is not just a lobby ecosystem but a whole industrial complex.
That there is not better accounting for the dynamic in the scientific literature is problematic. So too, is it problematic that there is not better public acknowledgement of these strong ties.
In my next post, I’ll map out another example.
Unfortunately a mirror for Big Pharma and the revolving door they are well known for....
You may want to check out David Zaruk's The Firebreak on Substack -- he's been looking at this ecosystem: https://www.thefirebreak.org/