NAACP Reveals Tactics Fossil Fuel Industry Uses to Manipulate Communities of Color

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The fossil fuel industry regularly deploys manipulative and dishonest tactics when engaging with communities of color, often working to co-opt the respect and authority of minority-led groups to serve corporate goals. That is according to a new report, โ€œFossil Fueled Foolery,โ€ published today by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which outlines the top 10ย manipulation tactics that the groupโ€™s members and partners routinelyย observe.

Some of the tactics are broad and political, like investing in efforts to undermine democracy through voter suppression and other means, or like financing political campaigns and โ€œinvesting inโ€ politicians at local, county, and state levels. Other tactics are even more discreet and deceitful, like claiming that regulations that would benefit heavily polluted communities will cause these same communities economicย harm.

Or, in other instances, denying the reality of air and water pollution, or even shifting the blame for this pollution to those disadvantaged communities that are suffering the impacts of fossil fuelย projects.

โ€œOne of the most duplicitous strategies of the fossil fuel industry is manipulating messaging which feigns concern for the welfare of low income and communities of color. This is a self-serving effort to maintain their wealth,โ€ said Kathy Egland, Chair of the NAACP National Board Committee on Environmental and Climate Justice, in aย statement.

A community in Louisiana's Cancer Alley tries to raise awareness of the health impacts of a synthetic rubber plant, which uses petroleum feedstock.
A community in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley tries to raise awareness of the health impacts of a synthetic rubber plant, which uses petroleum feedstock. Credit: Julie Dermansky forย DeSmog

The report itself is intended to serve as a primer for local branches and chapters of the NAACP, to ensure that they are โ€œfully aware of the practices employed by too many in the fossil fuel industry,โ€ according to lead author Jacqueline Patterson, Senior Director of the NAACPโ€™s Environmental and Climate Justiceย Program.

Patterson warns colleagues and members of the common practice of โ€œpacifying or co-opting community leaders and organizationsโ€ through financial support. Her research found countless examples of fossil fuel companies leveraging grants to weaken communitiesโ€™ resistance to various projects that would ultimately burden localย residents.

The Fueling U.S. Forwardย Blueprint

These tactics recall the strategies of the now-defunct Fueling U.S. Forward campaign, a Koch Industries-funded effort that overtly targeted minority communities to promote the โ€œimportance of domestic oil and natural gas to making peopleโ€™s lives better,โ€ as the groupโ€™s President Charles Drevna put it.

A New York Times article in early 2017 exposed how Fueling U.S. Forward sponsored events in communities of color, like a Christmas gospel concert in Richmond, Virginia, where the DJs raffled off utility bill payments and shouted out fossilย fuels.

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.

The event was held at a community center in the predominantly African-American East Highland Park neighborhood of Richmond, a city overwrought with industrial factories and rampant air pollution that ranks as one of the deadliestย โ€œasthma capitalsโ€ in the country, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation ofย America.

Richmond was, at the time, also the heart of debate about the future of the Atlantic Coast pipeline, a natural gas line proposed by Dominion Energy that would carry fracked natural gas 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina, requiring a number of polluting compressor stations to keep the gas moving along itsย path.

When he learned of Fueling U.S. Forwardโ€™s efforts in Richmond, Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, called the campaign โ€œan exploitative, sad and borderline racistย strategy.โ€

Koch-funded campaign targeting minorities with fossil fuel propaganda described as 'An exploitative, sad and borderline racist strategy'
Image source:ย Petrochemical Landscape byย Louis Vest,ย CC BYNC 2.0ย 

The NAACP report describes many campaigns and efforts deploying tactics similar to Fueling U.S. Forward. In one instance, the utility Duke Energy was targeting African-American community leaders in North Carolina to push the message that โ€œsolar hurts the poor.โ€ In another, ExxonMobil and other oil and gas companies donate millions to the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), which then took public positions opposing clean energy policy and supporting fossil fuelย development.

Patterson emphasizes that these tactics can only work if groups like the NAACP and its local partners aren’t aware of the true human and economic costs of fossil fuel exploitation, or if they’re not willing to push back against it. The report describes at length the health and financial harms that coal, oil, and gas bring to the communties they cross, and how these harms are disproportionately impacting people ofย color.

(Seeย Julie Dermansky’s series, Cancer Alley, for her in-depth reporting on the environmental and potential health impacts of the petrochemical industry inย Louisiana.)

The authors also include positive examples of how state and local NAACP chapters and frontline communities have resisted and fought for clean energy solutions that would bring wide-reaching benefits. These cases, said Patterson, show how local leaders โ€œsee these machinations for what they are, resist, and lead in the transition to a new, sustainable, and just energyย economy.โ€

Main image:ย Governor Martin O’Malley and the NAACP in November 2012. Credit: Governor Martin O’Malley, CC BYย 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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