Gabriel Nelson, E&E Reporter
The largest lobbying group for the coal industry is spoiling for a fight with Chesapeake Energy Corp., which bills itself as the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer, over the company's funding of a push for tougher air pollution rules.
Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake has given money to the American Lung Association to help fund the "Fighting for Air" campaign, according to past statements by Chesapeake and the ALA's most recent annual report. The health group is now running a nationwide advertising campaign, built around an image of a baby in a bright-red stroller coughing in front of a polluting power plant, to call for tougher air quality regulations.
The regulations would give Chesapeake more business as cleaner-burning natural gas -- along with renewables, nuclear or energy conservation measures -- becomes more cost-competitive against coal.
It's nothing new for corporations to give money to nonprofits that support their work. Coal companies have paid for advocacy groups such as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity to advertise heavily against new emissions rules, which would make coal-burning utilities add tens of billions of dollars of pollution control equipment over the next several years.
But the coal industry advocates say Chesapeake's funding for the ALA goes too far.
"It struck me as a less-than-forthright way to espouse your public policy agenda," said Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association. "If Chesapeake wants to fund ads, then I think they ought to put their name on it. We don't use front groups to carry our message."
Carrie Martin, a spokeswoman for ALA, said in an interview that the group has received multiple gifts from Chesapeake, starting in 2009. All the money has been completely unrestricted in its use, leaving the health group "complete creative control" over its campaigns and advertising, she said.
Physicians and researchers at the ALA have long said that pollution from burning coal is responsible for tens of thousands of early deaths per year and a variety of health problems, and called for all power plants to be held to the same standards.
A nonprofit's goal "is to get corporate funding to do the work that you're already doing, or would do if you had the resources," Martin said. "The integrity of our 105-plus-year-old organization won't be compromised by anyone's agenda."
The most recent advertisements have focused on U.S. EPA's rules for toxic emissions such as mercury, which are expected to be released in final form within the next few days. They have been a longtime priority for air quality advocates, and when the agency came out with its proposal this spring, Administrator Lisa Jackson was flanked by ALA President Charles Connor.
Chesapeake spokesman Jim Gipson said the company backed the American Lung Association because of its support for cleaner air -- "an interest that we share 100 percent with them."
He declined to say how much money the company has given the national group over the past few years. At one point, the company publicly offered to match up to $500,000 in gifts to the ALA regional chapter that includes Chesapeake's home state of Oklahoma.
"We do not have any coordination with ALA on the content or direction of any of its public education campaigns," Gipson wrote in an email. "Chesapeake is proud to support a wide variety and number of health- and medical-related organizations through our charitable giving program, especially those that support initiatives that support cleaner air."
Chesapeake has a history of rubbing the coal industry the wrong way with its advocacy.
Several years ago, the group acknowledged under pressure from lawmakers on Capitol Hill that it helped pay for an advertising campaign to discourage Dallas-based TXU Corp., now part of Energy Future Holdings Corp., from building new coal-burning power plants. The campaign's tagline was "Face it: Coal is filthy" (Greenwire<http://www.eenews.
Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon also chairs the American Clean Skies Foundation, a nonprofit funded in part by the company that has suggested ways to replace older, dirtier coal-burning plants with cleaner energy sources.