ALEC's Other 'Deadly Force' Campaign to Kill Climate Initiatives

Elliott Negin
Director of News & Commentary, Union of Concerned Scientists

The relatively unknown American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) got a black eye recently when news stories revealed it was a prime mover behind "Stand Your Ground" laws in Florida and 24 other states that temporarily shielded the man who shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

But the secretive group's influence in statehouses goes a lot further than deadly force, self-defense laws. Since its founding in 1973, ALEC has ghostwritten state legislation across the country on a wide range of issues, from voter ID laws to prison policy to worker protections, as a number of press accounts have pointed out.

What has gone unmentioned, however, is ALEC's longtime stealth campaign to scuttle state--and federal--climate change initiatives, despite the fact that a number of its corporate members publicly acknowledge that global warming is a serious problem. They include General Motors; oil giants BP America, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell Oil; and electric utilities Duke Energy, Entergy and Progress Energy.