Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) -- a coal and power industry front group -- is busy organizing opposition to America's Climate Security Act of 2007 proposed by Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner. The Institute for Southern Studies (ISS) reports that Pete MacDowell, an activist with the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, received a phone call from ABEC asking if he would put his name to a fax to Lieberman and Warner opposing the bill. Asked whether ABEC was an environmental group, the caller said "yes" and denied it had any links to power utilities. In response to ISS's revelation, Steve Gates from ABEC's parent group, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, stated that "one new staff member -- who is no longer working on this project – decided to 'wing it' when asked some questions that were off her script. This staff person clearly should have answered 'Yes' when asked if ABEC was related to the utility industry."

It isn't every day that a state's largest polluter gets honored, let alone receives a national environmental prize. But odds are better when the polluter -- and its buddies -- start and sit on the board of group giving the award. The Maryland-based Wildlife Habitat Council gave biodiversity conservation awards to 21 companies, including the Lafarge cement plant in Ravena, New York. The award was given to Lafarge for it's 150-acre Deer Mountain Nature Preserve and was awarded six months ago. But the honor was not publicized until the company came under fire for mercury contamination from its plant that is affecting a local high school. Federal reports show that the smokestack at that plant was New York state's largest mercury emitter for three years running. Environmentalists smell a case of greenwashing. "'At first I thought it was a joke. Then I was astonished and horrified,' said Laura Haight, an analyst with the New York Public Interest Research Group who has called on the state Department of Environmental Conservation to clamp down on the plant's mercury emissions." Joining Lafarge on the Wildlife Habitat Council's board of directors are representatives from Monsanto, Exxon Mobil, DuPont, ConocoPhillips and Waste Management. The conservation group Ducks Unlimited, which is funded by both Exxon Mobil and Anheuser-Busch, also holds a seat. The Council also awarded "Signatures of Sustainability" to DuPont and Anheuser-Busch Companies, both of which had a role in founding the group.

"AngryRenter.com looks a bit like a digital ransom note, with irregular fonts, exclamation points and big red arrows -- all emphasizing prudent renters' outrage over a proposed government bailout for irresponsible homeowners," writes Michael M. Phillips. In fact, however, "the people behind AngryRenter.com are certainly not renters. Though it purports to be a spontaneous uprising, AngryRenter.com is actually a product of an inside-the-Beltway conservative advocacy organization led by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, and publishing magnate Steve Forbes, a fellow Republican. It's a fake grass-roots effort -- what politicos call an AstroTurf campaign -- that provides a window into the sleight-of-hand ways of Washington."

Columnist Dimitri Vassilaros received a news release about a grassroots "petition to stop climate alarmism" and attacking Al Gore's work. He checked it out and found that "for an organization that claims 'we are grassroots to the core,' Grassfire.org acts as if it is hiding a lot of Astroturf. The politically conservative nonprofit is happy to talk about its worthy online petition campaigns," but is "very tight-lipped about talking about itself. ... The Maxwell, Iowa, address for donations to the grassroots organization is clearly displayed on its Web site. But its 2006 IRS 990 form states its address is Bethesda, Md., near Washington, D.C." The SourceWatch article on Grassfire revealed its relationship to Craig Shirley and his "slick Washington-area PR firm, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. ... When asked a few times about the organization's finances, [Grassfire's] Mr. De Jong first said he didn't know the size of the organization that he speaks for. He also said he 'could ask around' about that 990 form. When I offered to ask the bookkeeper for him, De Jong said, 'She will call, dude. Relax. I'll take care of it for you. I am a man of my word.' As of Thursday noon, no one had called this dude."

"Prozac Nation: Revisited," a show that aired on U.S. National Public Radio member stations, "featured four prestigious medical experts discussing the controversial link between antidepressants and suicide. ... All four said that worries ... have been overblown." But the show did not disclose that all four "have financial ties to the makers of antidepressants," or that the series that produced the show, "The Infinite Mind," has received "unrestricted grants" from drug companies including Eli Lilly, the makers of Prozac. One guest, Peter Pitts, heads the industry-funded Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and is "senior vice president for global health affairs at the PR firm Manning Selvage & Lee," which counts among its clients Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and "more than a dozen other pharmaceutical companies." In other drug news, Congressman Bart Stupak held a hearing titled "Direct to Consumer Advertising: Marketing, Education or Deception?" Stupak said "he wants to lay the groundwork for future legislation to tighten controls on drug marketing," reports the Wall Street Journal. The hearing addressed such "recent controversies" as ads for Pfizer's Lipitor, where artificial heart inventor Robert Jarvik "appears to be giving medical advice," and ads for Johnson & Johnson's anemia treatment Procrit that promote off-label uses for the drug.

Who could blame them if they sent the Mounties to the border? CMD reported previously on the Heartland Institute's climate change skepticism, and its efforts to cast doubt on the overwhelming evidence of global warming. The Chicago-based, ExxonMobil-funded think tank has taken its case north of the border, sending out "more than 11,000 brochures and DVDs to Canadian schools urging them to teach their students that scientists are exaggerating how human activity is the driving force behind global warming." While Heartland says that the outreach effort is an attempt to introduce "balance" into the discussion, the Sierra Club of Canada disagrees. Spokesperson Emilie Moorhouse said, "It's alarming that an American think tank is distributing misinformation on the most important issue of our time in Canadian schools, to actually create an illusion that there is a scientific debate." Ignoring the consensus reached by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that climate change is "unequivocal" and caused by human activities, "the brochure and DVD said that scientists were 'deeply divided' about 'the notion that climate change is mostly the result of human activities.'" Heartland also sent the information packets to 200 Canadian policymakers.

Buried in junk mail...what to do?A recent blog about the pro-junk mail lobby and its front group, Mail Moves America, drew many comments. Mail Moves America is a coalition of businesses that oppose efforts to create a legislated "Do Not Mail" list to protect citizens from being showered with unwanted junk mail,Junk mail is clearly a hot topic that arouses strong emotions on all sides. As electronic mail moves closer to overtaking paper mail as the medium of choice for written communication, it is clear that the Post Office remains an essential way to communicate and transfer goods. Still, many people are overwhelmed with junk mail and have little idea how to stop it.

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The lead author of the largest lung cancer screening study ever performed has come under fire for accepting cigarette company funding for the study and failing to disclose the relationship to the medical journal that published the results. Dr. Claudia Henschke, chief of the Chest Imaging Division at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City stunned the lung cancer research community by concluding that 80 percent of lung cancer deaths could be prevented by the widespread use of computerized tomography (CT) scans. Small print at the end of the article describing the study results published in the New England Journal of Medicine noted only that the study had been partly financed by the Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early Detection, Prevention and Treatment. The New York Times discovered, however, that the foundation was underwritten almost entirely by the Vector Group, the parent company of the Liggett Group, Inc., manufacturer of Eve, Liggett Select, Grand Prix, Quest and Pyramid brand cigarettes. The Times article highlighted the increasingly common practice of researchers and universities creating foundations and institutes as a way to shield information about their funders from the public, publishers and the press.

According to the Tennessee Ethics Commission's staff, a public relations firm that set up a front group that's encouraging people to contact legislators needs to register as a lobbyist. At issue is a proposal to allow Tennesseans to order wine over the Internet. The Tennessee Wine and Spirits Wholesalers, which opposes the bill, hired the prominent Nashville firm Seigenthaler Public Relations. The firm set up a website for the group "Tennesseans Against Teen Drinking." The group describes itself as "a statewide coalition of concerned Tennesseans," but "only the liquor wholesalers have provided funding so far." The group's website allows visitors to send state legislators "prepared e-mail messages opposing Internet wine sales and the sale of wine in grocery stores," saying doing so "would promote drinking by juveniles." The PR firm's president warned that requiring lobbyist registration would "lead to the chilling of free speech." But one of the legislators who requested the Ethics Commission opinion said it differentiates between "citizen groups" and PR firms hired "to create what was really not another entity; it was just a name." The Ethics Commission delayed its vote on the matter.

Senator Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, "moonlights" from his political PR firm AKP&D Message & Media. Working from the same office, "Axelrod operates a second business, ASK Public Strategies, that discreetly plots strategy and advertising campaigns for corporate clients," reports Howard Wolinsky. Axelrod's ASK partners are John Kupper and Eric Sedler, previously of AT&T and Edelman. Chicago Alder Brendan Reilly called ASK "the gold standard in Astroturf organizing." In 2005, as ComEd was "preparing to ask [Illinois] state regulators for higher electricity prices," ASK advised the company to form "Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity." The front group, which described itself as "a coalition of individuals, businesses and organizations," funded ads that warned of blackouts unless rates were raised. Around the same time, ASK helped Cablevision, which owns Madison Square Garden, oppose the New York Jets's plans to build a new stadium in Manhattan. Cablevision formed the "New York Association for Better Choices," and ran anti-stadium ads in its name. ASK's other work includes helping AT&T defend municipal broadband referenda.