Minority Communities in Virginia "Push Back on Koch Brothers," Call Fueling U.S. Forward a "Distasteful Effort"

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Religious leaders and environmental justice activists in Richmond, Virginia, are โ€œpushing backโ€ against the Koch-funded Fueling U.S. Forward campaignโ€™s efforts to target minority communities while promoting the โ€œimportance of domestic oil and natural gas to making peopleโ€™s lives better.โ€

One element of the strategy to win the โ€œhearts and mindsโ€ (as Alex Fitzsimmons of Fueling U.S. Forward put it) of minority communities was on display in Richmond, Virginia, last December, when the group threw a gospel concert that included pro-fossil fuel propaganda and a surprise award payment of four attendeesโ€™ electricย bills.

As the New York Times described:

Though few in the crowd knew it, the concert had a powerful sponsor: Fueling U.S. Forward, a public relations group for fossil fuels funded by Koch Industries, the oil and petrochemicals conglomerate led by the ultraconservative billionaire brothers David H. and Charles G. Koch. About halfway through the event, the music gave way to a panel discussion on how the holidays were made possible by energy โ€” cheap energy, like oil andย gas.

The concert flier was adorned with a red car bearing Christmas gifts. โ€œThankful for the fuels and innovation that make modern life possible,โ€ itย read.

At the time, commenting on the event and the campaign to the New York Times, Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, called it โ€œan exploitative, sad and borderline racistย strategy.โ€

Many local environmental advocates from minority communities felt the same. Last week, the regionโ€™s congressional representative,ย A. Donald McEachin, hosted an environmental justice roundtable at a Baptist church in Petersburg, a suburb of Richmond with a strong majority of residents that are people ofย color.

As reported in the Progress-Index, a daily newspaper from Petersburg, a manager of the Virginia Conservation Network, โ€œa diverse group of conservation organizations that among other issues supports clean energy,โ€ said that the roundtable with Rep. McEachin was an effort โ€œto push back against the Kochย brothers.โ€

Conservation organizer Mariah Davis, also with the VCN, described the Fueling U.S. Forward event as โ€œa โ€˜distasteful effortโ€™ by Koch to sway low-income communities away from cleanย energy.โ€

According to the Progress-Index, Rep. McEachin himself, speaking of the Fueling U.S. Forward concert, โ€œequated the group’s payment of citizens’ electric bills with the โ€˜30 pieces of silverโ€™ Judas took to betrayย Jesus.โ€

As Fueling U.S. Forward works to purchase the hearts and minds of minority communities with electric bill payments and college scholarships, the campaign promotes oil and gas as necessary and cheap sources of energy. Not factored into their definition of โ€œcheap,โ€ however, are the multitude of public health and environmental costs that are inflicted upon the lower-income communities the campaign isย targeting.

Main image:ย A Richmond City Public Schools bus Credit:ย Tom Woodward,ย CC BYSAย 2.0

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Ben Jervey is a Senior Fellow for DeSmog and directs the KochvsClean.com project. He is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, specializing in climate change and energy systems and policy. Ben is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor for GOOD Magazine, and wrote a longstanding weekly column titled โ€œThe New Ideal: Building the clean energy economy of the 21st Century and avoiding the worst fates of climate change.โ€ He has also contributed regularly to National Geographic News, Grist, and OnEarth Magazine. He has published three booksโ€”on eco-friendly living in New York City, an Energy 101 primer, and, most recently, โ€œThe Electric Battery: Charging Forward to a Low Carbon Future.โ€ He graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College, and earned a Masterโ€™s in Energy Regulation and Law at Vermont Law School. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much ofย Europe.

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