Republicans Caught Lying About Costs of RGGI

Have Republicans and Corporate Lobbyists No Shame?

Back on June 11, we challenged the Star Ledger’s PolitiFact site to fact check Governor Christie and corporate lobbyists’ claims about energy, especially on the costs and economic impacts of RGGI (see: Fact Check Christie Claims on Energy). 

We are pleased to report that they have responded to that challenge and fact checked some of those claims.

The verdict is in: yesterday the Truth-O-Meter concluded that Republicans are lying.

NJ Chamber of Commerce lobbyist, Mike Egenton. Stop the lies, Mike.

I’d also like to note that the NJ Chamber of Commerce lobbyist – just yesterday, after the Ocean Spray “manufactured horror story” was exposed by the Star Ledger as a lie - shamelessly repeated exactly that Ocean Spray lie in testimony to the Senate Environment Committee.

Worse, after repeating that lie, he then went on to attack the Sierra Club’s lobbyist for his claims about the solar installation at the Budweiser facility.

From the outset of the Christie Administration, the NJ Chamber of Commerce has engaged in a concerted campaign of misinformation, lies, and manufactured false “horror stories”. [

[Update: good article on the national strategy: How Corporate America came to dominate our discourse”.  We too have written about the Powell memo, Nader, and corporate backlash – see this)

For far too long, the media has uncritically reported the lies and spin of corporate lobbyists and republicans about the economic effects of environmental protections.

Those false claims have poisoned the public discourse.

Those lies have become conventional wisdom and the basis for reckless and  wildly destructive policies.

So, now that the Ocean Spray lie is confirmed, lets hope the media reports the lie as a fact, does more investigative journalism, and begins to fact check other false claims before printing them.

We are pleased to report that Democratic Committee Chairmen Chivukula, McKeon, and Smith have begun to do so recently.

Kudos to them for that. Let’s hope the pushback continues and expands