“IER [and AEA] would like to work itself out of a job by depoliticizing energy so that lobbying monies can be retained by individuals, foundations, and corporations for nonpolitical purposes, thank you. With the help of the New York Times, we can do so and get the saved money to other uses.”

[Editor’s Note: Ad Hominem attacks on free-market organizations espousing industry positions are a regular occurrence, even though the same organizations oppose the same companies when they seek special government favors. This repost from five years ago remains as relevant today as then. Part II tomorrow, also a repost from April 2012, explains the philosophy behind the Institute for Energy Research/American Energy Alliance.]

The New York Times is upset with “Big Oil,” including the advocacy group American Energy Alliance (AEA).…

“A consortium of grant seekers, organized under the name ‘Aqua Ventus,’ vies for $40 million in Department of Energy grants to build a demonstration wind project within three miles of Monhegan Island. They do so under the higher moral purpose of saving the planet, but that is simply to camouflage what is but a callous quest for ‘free’ government money, taxpayers and ratepayers be damned.”

Will the new, improved US Department of Energy (DOE) just-say-no to a massively uneconomic proposed wind project offshore?

I call your attention to a situation in Maine which I believe is a poster child for how the forgotten American is being robbed and disrespected by the renewable-energy special interests and their coterie of shills. The issue is this: DOE is presently considering grants of $40 million for a project which would never exist absent tax-and-spend government largesse to this point.…

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), are in the news.

As reported last month in the Los Angeles Times, and more recently in Bloomberg Politics, IER/AEA are involved in the free-market directions that the president-elect and his team have followed to date.

One account described the founding of IER as follows:

The Institute for Energy Research was founded to be a clearinghouse for energy information in 1989 in Houston by Robert L. Bradley Jr., a speechwriter for Enron chief executive Kenneth Lay, who was later convicted of securities fraud.

Given that this association is part of the political conversation (Joe Romm started it in 2009: see below), and the continuing attention that is ahead for IER/AEA, I wish to revisit the historical record about my time at Enron that overlapped with IER.…

“This year, the fossil fuel industry may top the list of Americans feeling most thankful. The election of Donald Trump not only promises to grant many of their fondest deregulation wishes, but it could also offer a potential Black Friday-like atmosphere on things like drilling leases and access to public lands.”

So began a fundraising pitch from Inside Climate News, a investigative journalism outfit starting from false premises to reach false conclusions.

The headlines from the same outfit in the same week were happy ones from a pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, anti-coercion viewpoint.

• How Much of Obama’s Climate Agenda Can Trump Undo With the Stroke of a Pen? by  Sabrina Shankman

• Here are 9 Obama Environmental Regulations in Trump’s Crosshairs by Marianne Lavelle

• Donald Trump and Climate Change: Top 10 Ways He Could Reverse Progress by John H.