The Clean Coal Lobby

[cross-posted at Beltway Confidential]
What do you do if environmentalists are gunning for you and want to use Washington to destroy or at least severely curb the use of the only project you sell? You call on Washington for billions in subsidies to make your product cleaner. Hence, the clean coal lobby.

The Center for Public Integrity's new initiative tracking the boom in climate change lobbying looks at the clean coal lobby in a new report, on the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity:

However one interprets ACCCE’s message, it has the power of well-heeled and politically engaged companies behind it. Amid the punishing economy of 2008, the top five U.S. coal mining companies saw their profits more than double to $1.9 billion. And the industry is determined to use a slice of those profits to deliver its message. Senate disclosure forms reveal that ACCCE spent $9.95 million on Washington lobbying last year, far more than any other group devoted to climate change — although ACCCE says the figure was inflated because it included advertising and grassroots advocacy that most groups don’t report.