Memo to Sen. Whitehouse: On Climate, Check Your Transcripts Before Attacking Very Same Groups You Praised in the Past
Tuesday August 9, 2016
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s crusade against energy companies and conservative think tanks just took an absurd new twist.
In a press release today, the Rhode Island Democrat accuses a number of think tanks of engaging in “climate denial,” even though they happen to employ lots of high-profile supporters of a carbon tax. Even more embarrassing, one of the groups targeted by the senator actually helped Whitehouse promote his own carbon tax plan a little more than a year ago. In fact, the senator has cited experts from the same think tank – the American Enterprise Institute – when pushing a carbon tax on the Senate floor.
Whitehouse is a key figure in the #ExxonKnew crackdown on climate policy and free speech. In July, he led a series of speeches on the Senate floor accusing ExxonMobil and a number of conservative groups of promoting a “web of denial” on climate research. In a letter to Whitehouse, Exxon sought to correct the record, highlighting its $7 billion investment in low-emission energy sources since 2000 (exceeding that of the federal government), its support for a carbon tax, and other steps the company has taken...