November, 13 2018, 11:00pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jim Warren, NC WARN, (919) 416-5077, Jim@ncwarn.org; Erin Jensen, Friends of the Earth, (202) 222-0722, ejensen@foe.org
Groups Take Legal Action to Ban Duke Energy Influence Spending
National epidemic of captive monopoly customers being forced to fund disinformation, political pay-offs violates Constitutional protection against coerced speech, say critics
Durham, NC
NC WARN, a North Carolina climate justice watchdog, and Friends of the Earth, a leading environmental organization, began legal action today to ban the pervasive influence spending by Duke Energy in a case with national ramifications for climate change, electricity rates and corporate control over government and civic leaders. The groups say Duke Energy uses more than $80 million annually in the Carolinas - originating from customers - to mislead the public and decision-makers as an essential plank of its business model that shields the corporation from criticism and accountability.
The petition calls for the NC Utilities Commission to prohibit the use of customers' money for influence spending by Duke's two Carolinas-based utilities and the parent corporation. It details how virtually all the spending for political and civic influence originates from customer bills, and how Duke Energy uses an "accounting fiction" to claim that its stockholders or employees pay for image-polishing propaganda, targeted philanthropy, political giveaways and other efforts to buy favor.
The case is being bolstered by the former Chairman of the New York Utilities Commission, Peter Bradford, who filed an affidavit describing utility influence spending as a long-running national problem, and he urged the NC Commission to take the lead in reining it in: "Given the harm demonstrably done by utility programs designed to further their influence over policymaking processes, the Commission should do all that it can within the framework of the First Amendment to assure that customers do not pay for these programs..."
During a March rate hearing, Duke Energy threatened NC WARN with a libel lawsuit over evidence introduced regarding the $80 million in annual influence spending, but corporate officials barely even tried to refute the evidence while on the witness stand or afterward.
"Influence spending by energy corporations is a national epidemic that is polluting our democracy and driving the climate crisis," said Michelle Chan, Vice President of Programs at Friends of the Earth. "Duke Energy and other utilities are only concerned with growing their corporate profits by expanding the use of fracked gas and preventing cheaper, clean energy alternatives."
The case, filed by attorneys Kristen Wills and Matt Quinn, cites a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling against political spending by a labor union to argue that Duke Energy's customers are being forced to have part of their power bills pay for Duke Energy propaganda and political influence with which they vigorously disagree.
NC WARN's Jim Warren said today, "Duke Energy executives calculate that they must spend millions to keep their 20th Century business model going. They simply have to buy favor and stifle criticism of the corporation's role in driving the climate crisis, its coal ash fiascos and constantly raising rates to build unneeded power plants and fracked gas infrastructure such as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline."
Warren said Duke Energy executives constantly deceive the public, the press and politicians about key corporate practices. As one example, he cited renewable energy, saying that despite solar panels in every TV ad, Duke is only at 3 percent renewables in the Carolinas and plans to be at only 7 or 8 percent by 2033. He also cited Duke's persistent claims that it has reduced its climate pollution even though it is greatly expanding the use of fracked "natural" gas. Scientists warn that unburned methane leaking from fracking wells, pipelines and power plants is a key short-term driver of the hyper-urgent climate crisis.
Former Commissioner Bradford also explained in his affidavit "Having no need to compete for customers ... utilities have long understood their greatest public acceptance challenge to lie in assuring a favorable political climate. North Carolina utilities focus heavily on assuring that their interests are protected in political forums rather than in nonexistent competitive market places. The appointment of regulators and other officials, the enactment of legislation, the selection of judges, the election of legislators, the influencing of opinion pieces and of media editors - these are areas where the expenditure of a few million dollars can and does make a very large difference ..."
He added, "The anti-consumer consequences are clear and dramatic, amounting to damage between 100 and 1000 times greater than the amounts spent buying influence."
"Adequately responding to the climate crisis means not just tackling the technical question of transitioning to renewable energy," Chan continued. "It also means stopping corporate monopolies like Duke from corroding our democracy and standing in the way of the change we need to protect people and the planet."
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
Survey Shows Progressive Voters Want 'Fighters,' Not 'Status Quo' Democrats, to Battle Trump
Our Revolution connected the sentiments expressed in the survey to a bid by Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg to support primaries against safe-seat incumbents.
Apr 23, 2025
Active progressive and Democratic-leaning voters are interested in seeing primary challengers to Democrats who represent the "status quo" and are "failing to meet the moment," according to a survey from the group Our Revolution, which polled more than 4,100 voters meeting that description between April 18-20.
According to survey results published Wednesday, 92% want primary challenges to status quo Democrats who aren't generating enough grassroots energy—and 96% support "transforming the party from within," which Our Revolution defines as electing Democratic challengers who reject corporate political action committee (PAC) money and are "ready to take the fight directly to Trump and his enablers."
Our Revolution, a progressive political organizing group launched as a continuation of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign, said in a statement Wednesday that the results reveal a deep frustration with Democratic Party leadership.
Our Revolution also connected the survey results to an effort by David Hogg, Democratic National Committee vice chair and survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, to primary "ineffective, asleep-at-the-wheel" Democrats in safely blue seats.
The PAC Hogg co-founded, Leaders We Deserve, has pledged to spend $20 million to support primary challengers in such races.
"Our Revolution polling shows Hogg's sentiment is shared by a large majority of engaged progressive voters," Our Revolution said.
"The voters we organize with are sounding the alarm: they want fighters, not placeholders," added Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution. "If the party establishment continues to sleepwalk through this crisis, they'll be replaced by a new generation of leaders who aren’t afraid to take on the fight of our lives."
In the release, Geevargheese called the survey respondents voters that Our Revolution organizes, though the statement about the survey results doesn't offer more information about the survey sample.
In addition to support for primarying establishment Democrats, 87% of respondents said the Democratic Party has "lost its way."
What's more, 82% want the Democratic Party to stop accepting "Big Money" from billionaires and corporations, 70% said they are not confident Democratic leaders will do what's needed to stop Trump, and 72% support moving away from a "cautious, centrist approach" in confronting Trump and the far right.
In March, Our Revolution conducted a survey of its own members which found that nearly 90% of respondents believe Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) should step aside from his leadership role, and 86% said they would support a primary challenger against Schumer for his Senate seat, should he refuse to step aside.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Under Trump 2.0, Business Is Booming for Corporate Lobbying Firms
"Lobbying firms like Ballard Partners know they can trust the Trump administration to fight on behalf of their corporate clients."
Apr 23, 2025
Disclosures filed this week show that lobbying firms with close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump's White House have seen business surge at the start of 2025, with one group that used to employ Trump's chief of staff and attorney general more than doubling its first-quarter revenue compared to last year.
Ballard Partners, a firm led by a Trump donor, reported $14 million in lobbying revenue in the first three months of this year, up from $6.2 million during the same time in 2024.
Politicoreported earlier this week that Ballard "has disclosed more than 130 new lobbying clients just since Election Day, including JPMorgan Chase, Chevron, Palantir, Netflix, Ripple Labs, and the Business Roundtable."
Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles both previously lobbied for Ballard, as did Trump's deputy director of personnel, Trent Morse.
"Lobbying firms like Ballard Partners know they can trust the Trump administration to fight on behalf of their corporate clients," the anti-corruption group End Citizens United said in response to the new disclosures.
Mother Jonesnoted that Ballard "wasn't the only lobbying firm to see a Trump bump."
"Mercury Public Affairs, where Wiles briefly worked repping a tobacco company, reported earning $5.1 million from lobbying in the first quarter of 2025—nearly half the $11.4 million it earned in all of 2024," the outlet observed. "Miller Strategies, run by super-lobbyist Jeff Miller (the firm's website includes a link to a Wall Street Journalarticle proclaiming Miller 'Trump's K Street rainmaker' for his prominent role in campaign fundraising), reported earning $8.6 million in the first three months of this year. In all of 2024, it only reported $12.6 million."
Despite claiming on the campaign trail that he was "not a big person for lobbyists" and that politicians "have to stop listening" to them, Trump has shown a willingness to do their bidding at the start of his second term in the White House.
Earlier this month, as Common Dreamsreported, Trump signed an executive order aimed at delaying Medicare negotiations for a major category of prescription drugs after pharmaceutical industry lobbyists pushed aggressively for the change.
On Monday, The Leverreported that Trump's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "hid data that mapped out the locations of thousands of dangerous chemical facilities, after chemical industry lobbyists demanded that the Trump administration take down the public records."
"After President Donald Trump's victory in November, chemical companies donated generously to his inauguration fund," the outlet observed. "Oil giant ExxonMobil, which is a member of the American Chemistry Council, the industry's main lobbying arm, donated $1 million. The multinational chemical company DuPont donated $250,000."
Trump has placed Lynn Dekleva, a former lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council and DuPont, at the head of an EPA office with "the authority to approve new chemicals for use," The New York Timesreported in February.
During her time with the American Chemistry Council, Dekleva led the group's lobbying campaign to limit EPA regulations on formaldehyde, which the U.S. National Toxicology Program labels as a known carcinogen.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Need Urgent Global Action': Study Warns Humanity on Path to Trigger 16 Climate Tipping Points
"It is clear that we are currently on a dangerous trajectory," said one University of Exeter professor.
Apr 23, 2025
Scientists on Wednesday released yet another study warning that humankind is at risk of triggering various climate "tipping points" absent urgent action to dramatically reduce planet-heating emissions from fossil fuels.
The new peer-reviewed paper, published Wednesday in the journal Earth System Dynamics, comes from a trio of experts at the United Kingdom's University of Exeter and the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Climate scholars use the term "tipping point" to describe a critical threshold which, when crossed, "leads to significant and long-term changes of the system," the paper notes. Debate over it "has intensified over the past two decades," prompting several studies of specific risks.
"Climate tipping points could have devastating consequences for humanity," said co-author Tim Lenton in a statement. "It is clear that we are currently on a dangerous trajectory—with tipping points likely to be triggered unless we change course rapidly."
"We need urgent global action—including the triggering of 'positive tipping points' in our societies and economies—to reach a safe and sustainable future," added the Exeter professor and Global Systems Institute director.
Lenton's team calculated the probabilities of triggering 16 tipping points. They looked at the risks of serious damage to key glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice, and permafrost; the dieback of forests such as the Amazon; the die-off of low-latitute coral reefs; and the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is part of a crucial "global conveyor belt" of ocean currents.
To assess the risk of current policies triggering climate tipping points, the researchers focused on a scenario in which median warming of 2.8°C takes place by the end of the century.
On that pathway, the study says, "our most conservative estimate of triggering probabilities averaged over all tipping points is 62%... and nine tipping points have a more than 50% probability of getting triggered."
Under scenarios with lower temperature rise, "the risk of triggering climate tipping points is reduced significantly," the study continues. "However, it also remains less constrained since the behaviour of climate tipping points in the case of a temperature overshoot is still highly uncertain."
The paper concludes that "rapid action is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, since climate tipping points are already close, and it will be decided within the coming decades if they will be crossed or not."
Lead author Jakob Deutloff shared that takeaway a bit more optimistically, saying that "the good news from our study is that the power to prevent climate tipping points is still in our hands."
"By moving towards a more sustainable future with lower emissions, the risk of triggering these tipping points is significantly reduced," he added. "And it appears that breaching tipping points within the Amazon and the permafrost region should not necessarily trigger others."
▶️New paper from Jakob Deutloff, Hermann Held and Tim Lenton highlights the need for action to prevent triggering climate tipping points. More on this at The Global Tipping Points conference @exeter.ac.uk Register now! global-tipping-points.org/conference-2... esd.copernicus.org/articles/16/...
[image or embed]
— Global Systems Institute (@gsiexeter.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 4:45 AM
The paper was published during Covering Climate Now's joint week of media coverage drawing attention to the 89% of people worldwide who want their governments to do more to address the global crisis; ahead of a Global Systems Institute conference on tipping points this summer; and just over six months away from the next United Nations climate summit, COP30, in Brazil.
While some governments are trying to prevent the worst-case scenario by taking action to cut emissions, U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear since returning to office in January that he aims to deliver on his pro-fossil fuel campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill."
On the heels of the
hottest year in human history, Trump is working to gut key agencies, ditched the Paris climate agreement, and has taken executive action to boost planet-wrecking coal, gas, and oil, including declaring a national energy emergency.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular