In a potentially devastating move for the Washington, DC coal lobby,
Duke Energy has announced that it is canceling its membership with the
controversial American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).
You'll recall that ACCCE was the coal industry front group recently involved in the Bonner and Associates scandal
where fake letters from influential organizations like the AARP were
sent to members of Congress urging them to vote against the
Waxman-Markey clean energy bill.
According to a report in the National Journal today, Duke Energy "left
the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy on Tuesday over
differences with 'influential member companies who will not support
passing climate change legislation in 2009 or 2010.'
Josh Nelson at Enviroknow obtained a copy of Duke Energy's talking points on the matter:
The following are talking points related to Duke Energy
withdrawing from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity,
which Duke Energy has been a member of since the fall of 2007.·
While some individual members of ACCCE are working to pass climate
change legislation, we believe ACCCE is constrained by influential
member companies who will not support passing climate change
legislation in 2009 or 2010.· This became increasingly apparent during and after the debate on
the Waxman/Markey legislation in the U.S. House in recent months.· This is not consistent with Duke Energy’s work to pass
economy-wide and cost effective climate change legislation as soon as
possible.· Therefore, effective Sept. 1, 2009, Duke Energy resigned from ACCCE
I expect there will be more moves like this in the near future as
energy companies begin to realize that siding with front groups like
ACCCE put them on the wrong side of the clean energy issue and the
downside of being associated with such a group far outweigh any
benefits.