A leaked coal industry memo claims that General Motors and Ford are behind a controversial climate change-denial ad campaign currently being run by the the libertarian lobby group the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

(Both Ford and GM now deny this claim – see the comment string that follows.)

The DeSmogBlog team has received a copy of a leaked July 17, 2006 memo written by Stanley Lewandowski, General Manager of the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA). The memo states: 

“The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has been running two ads in ten states that were financed by General Motors and Ford Motor Company.”

The memo goes on to outline a plan for a well-funded and well-organized PR campaign sponsored by some of the US‘s largest energy interests, such as Koch Industries and the Southern Company. The campaigners aim to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change in an attempt stifle an initiative by Democratic Congressmen to tax and cap carbon emissions.

The CEI, which has accepted millions in funding from fossil fuel interests, recently launched two commercials arguing that the build-up of the greenhouse gas C02 is good for us. (“They call it pollution; we call it life.”)

The commercials, which currently air in 14 US states, fly in the face of the scientific consensus that human CO2 production is causing global warming.

This memo (attached) flies in the face of the usual CEI claim that it is an impartial think tank and not a de facto PR agency in the direct employ of those who benefit from irresponsible overuse of fossil fuels.