US Chamber President Tom Donohue Pushes Deceitful Dirty Energy Talking Points

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Tom Donohue, the president of the massive business lobbying group the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is once again doing the bidding of the dirty energy industry by claiming that America is on the verge of complete โ€œenergy security.โ€

On the pages of the U.S. Chamberโ€™s Free Enterprise website, Donohue claimed that America has become an โ€œenergy richโ€ nation, no longer susceptible to problems like the gas shortage of the 1970โ€™s.ย  In Donohueโ€™s own words:

Weโ€™re sitting on a 200-year supply of oil and have enough natural gas to last us 115 years. And weโ€™re discovering more resources every day. Thanks to new technology, entrepreneurship, and access to private lands, weโ€™re able to develop more of it than everโ€”particularly the unconventional oil and gas, which was previously too costly toย reachโ€ฆ

โ€ฆOur national energy policy is still based on the false assumption that we are an energy-poor nation. The federal government continues to keep 87% of federal lands off limits for energy development. Our affordable and abundant coal resources are under constant regulatory threat by EPA. The administration is proposing new regulations on shale energy development, even though it is already stringently regulated at the state level. And some in the government still want to pick winners and losers among energyย industries.

Donohue would have us believe that the United States is sitting on vast energy reserves that would quench our dirty energy addiction for centuries, but the pesky federal government is trying to keep those honest energy companiesย down.ย 

This is the same government that, a few paragraphs earlier Donohue inadvertently admitted, had allowed increased oil and gas drilling in the United States and reduced our need forย imports:

A recent report by the U.S. Chamberโ€™s Institute for 21st Century Energy found that increased oil and gas production has lowered U.S. energy security risks. It has helped drive down our petroleum imports from 60% of consumption to 35% in less than aย decade.

Donohue is correct about the fact that domestic energy production is soaring, but he ignores the fact that this increase is directly attributable to the decision by the federal government to permit increased drilling on federally protectedย lands.

The heart of Donohueโ€™s argument is that the U.S. is floating on countless barrels worth of dirty energy, and we need to get drilling.ย  Technically, Donohue isnโ€™t wrong.ย  The industry funded Institute for Energy Research has estimated that there are more than a trillion barrels worth of dirty energy beneath U.S. soil and water, a talking point that has been endlessly parroted on both Fox News and CNBC.ย 

But here is what Donohue doesnโ€™t want the public to know:ย  Those trillions of barrels are not economically recoverable.ย  To put it simply, it would cost more to extract the energy (in most cases shale oil) than the drillers could possibly sell it for on the market.ย  Itโ€™s like finding fertile farm land on the moon โ€“ sure, itโ€™s there, but it doesnโ€™t do us anyย good.

The U.S. Chamber likes to masquerade as an organization that is concerned about โ€œsmall businesses,โ€ the group is little more than an extension of the interests of big business, particularly the dirty energy industry.ย  On issues across the board, the Chamber has fought for the interests of oil, coal, and natural gas producers.ย  It is worth noting that representatives from Exxon, BP, Chevron, Massey Energy, and Shell help fund the Chamberโ€™s activities, according to Think Progress.

In the 2010 U.S. midterm elections, the U.S. Chamber spent more than $75 million to unseat members of Congress who were deemed โ€œunfriendlyโ€ to the oil and gasย industries.ย 

Most recently, the U.S. Chamber filed an amicus brief on behalf of the dirty energy industry arguing that a court decision forcing the dirty energy industry to disclose the payments that they receive from foreign governments would make them less competitive.ย  In reality, it would let the public know that the lobbying and campaign donations being thrown out by the industry are coming from otherย countries.

Additionally, the Chamber has helped defend dirty energy companies like Chevron, Exxon, Citgo, BP, and Duke Energy when they were facing lawsuits over environmentalย damage.

The U.S. Chamber is in the tank for the dirty energy industry, and Donohueโ€™s insistence that the United States government is hindering our quest for unnecessary oil is clear proof ofย that.

Image credit: dvarg / 123RF Stockย Photo

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Farron Cousins is the executive editor of The Trial Lawyer magazine, and his articles have appeared on The Huffington Post, Alternet, and The Progressive Magazine. He has worked for the Ring of Fire radio program with hosts Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Mike Papantonio, and Sam Seder since August 2004, and is currently the co-host and producer of the program. He also currently serves as the co-host of Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV, a daily program airing nightly at 8:30pm eastern. Farron received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of West Florida in 2005 and became a member of American MENSA in 2009.ย  Follow him on Twitterย @farronbalanced.

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