Coal industry pays fake activists $50 to wear pro-coal shirts at public hearing

[n2doc]

By Rebecca Leber



Apparently unable to find real activists, the coal industry paid astroturfers $50 to wear pro-coal T-shirts at an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hearing yesterday.

The EPA hearings, held in Chicago and Washington, D.C., were focused on the agency’s first-ever carbon standards for new power plants. The industry has adamantly opposed these standards, as well as standards on mercury — a pollutant that even Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) admits is harmful.

This year, coal is throwing around its weight by spending tens of millions of dollars on media advertising and political contributions.

more
http://grist.org/coal/coal-industry-pays-fake-activists-50-to-wear-pro-coal-shirts-at-public-hearing/

[freshwest]

1. Common corporate practice. Privatization people also hire the homeless to make the impression that

They have support, but when you talk to them later, all they know is that they were offered something to take up space and have no idea what the issue was.

This is how they pack meetings so concerned citizens fighting the battles can't get in to speak. There is no depth capitalist vultures won't plumb down to.

Good find on this one, thanks for posting it.

[KansDem]

2. Job creators!!!

And I bet you thought the coal industry was all about mountain-top removal, polluted streams, OSHA infractions, union busting, and miners' deaths...

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[leveymg]

3. Those guys obviously just came straight out of a coal mine. (The plaid pants are a give-away)

(Actually, they look like Congressional interns - probably college students).

"A Working Class hero is a thing to be."

[arcane1]

4. I'd pay $50 if they would distribute DVDs of "Harlan County, USA"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074605/

[backwoodsbob]

5. this is a regular thang

two years ago i was payed 8 hours OT to show up at that Nugent sponsored freedom rally in WV.

I showed up...signed sheet...and went back home a few hundred richer

[limpyhobbler]

6. There was a group of these losers there when Biden spoke in Martins Ferry OH last week.

Fox News is branding it the War on Coal. Oooohhh spoooky.