Techdiplomacy

Before he cast his vote on the Waxman-Markety bill in June 2009, Charlottesville, Virginia Representative, Tom Perriello, tried to determine what his constituents actually wanted his vote to be. He had coorespondance from thousands of voters. One letter he noticed was written by Creciendo Juntos, which is a nonprofit that works with the Hispanic community in Charlotteville VIrginia. He also had several notes from the Albemarle- Charlotteville Virginia branch of the NAACP. The gist of the letters was that these groups wanted the congressman to vote against the bill that was climate change legislation. None of the letters were authentic, they were all forgeries. Tim Freilich, who is an executive committee member of Creciedo Juntos said “they stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization.” He stated, “it’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.” The person who sent the letter has not been identified, but he or she was employed by a Washington lobbying firm called Bonner Associates. It is unclear who hired Bonner & Associates. Nonetheless, it has cast suspicion over the lobby, as well as the lobbying industry at large. A report Wednesday by the Center for Responsive Politics revealed that oil and gas companies greatly increased their spending on lobbying between April and June, which analysts say were efforts to combat the legislation. During the second quarter of 2009, these companies spent $37.7 million on lobbying congress, representing a 30 percent increase over 2008. Perriello did vote in favor of the bill, which narrowly passed the House on June 26 in a 219 to 212 vote.

Obviously the coal industry is anxious to defeat any efforts to pass clean air legislation. This is sad on many levels. They are willing to sacrifice our children’s future in order to maintain the status quo, which means increased global warming. Many groups are calling for crimInal prosecution of all involved. How do you feel about all this? Leave a comment, see you around the galaxy.