Sooty Linings Playbook -- brought to you by our frenemy, ALEC

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the innocuously-named American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC, funded by huge corporate polluters and their deep-pocketed friends like the Koch brothers, has developed a playbook to get anti-environmental laws passed in state legislatures across the land.

The strategy starts with developing model bills that can be shared with legislators, who then introduce them in state capitols. (See the Center for Media Democracy's very helpful website, ALEC Exposed.)

ALEC is shameless about how little concern they have for the public good. They ferociously attack the idea that the country should begin to limit CO2 emissions, as shown in their EPA's Regulatory Train Wreck: Strategies for State Legislators.

This struck home all too painfully this month, when the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed (and Governor Tom Corbett signed) H.B. 2354, which we like to call the Stall on Carbon bill. Coal interests carried the day in Harrisburg to get this awful bill passed. Its aim is to interfere to the maximum extent possible with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed standard to limit CO2 emissions from coal-burning power plants.

The EPA proposal offers each state abundant flexibility in meeting its state-specific targets. Ironically, H.B. 2354 could backfire on its supporters by ultimately forcing the Commonwealth to forfeit all its flexibility under the rule and forcing the EPA to impose a top-down plan on Pennsylvania. It's embarrassing that so many of our state legislators who supported this terrible bill seem not to have thought this all through in advance.

Unlike Hollywood's playbook, which so easily brings us silver linings, we in Pennsylvania may be stuck with a sooty lining thanks to our frenemy, ALEC.
                  
P.S. Want to see which fossil fuels giants are straddling the fence, claiming to care about climate change but are still part of ALEC? HuffPo sums it up nicely.

Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia. She tweets @joybergey.

With friends like ALEC, who needs enemies?

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, for short. Sounds innocuous enough, right?

Its website says ALEC "provides a constructive forum for state legislators and private sector leaders to discuss and exchange practical, state-level public policy issues."

Gee, a reasonable person thinks, this might even be a good idea.

Not so fast.

ALEC is, in fact, a national think tank that pushes free market policies at the state level. We're in favor of free markets as much as the next fellow, as long as they're fair markets based on reality and, yes, truth.

And that's where we part ways with ALEC. The group, funded in part by the Koch brothers, is unfortunately committed not just to denying climate science, but to throwing wrenches into the works of any state legislature that is working to slow climate change and/or advance clean, efficient energy.

ALEC has been lurking for years now, usually quietly, doing their damage where they can at state capitols around the country.

But last week, several really big tech firms publicly withdrew their memberships from ALEC, nothing quiet about it. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said that ALEC has been "literally lying" about the reality of climate change. Yelp and Yahoo have announced they're leaving ALEC, and Facebook has said they're unlikely to renew their membership.

But now, even oil companies like Occidental Petroleum are leaving ALEC because they just don't want to be associated with their positions. That's really saying something about ALEC's credibility.

Sorry, ALEC. We all see right through you. Good riddance.

Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia. She tweets @joybergey.