Obama group backs clean energy

Jul 05 - USA TODAY

As President Obama pushes an aggressive national climate-change plan, his administration's non-profit advocacy arm is becoming active in clean-energy drives across the country.

Organizing for Action (OFA) also has formed a partnership that steers its volunteers to purchase wind and solar power from a single company with ties to liberal groups.

"While we are doing all of this work to advance the president's agenda in Congress, we also want to do everything we can locally to help switch to clean energy," said Ivan Frishberg, Organizing for Action's climate-change manager.

Organizing for Action, for instance, will recommend that its volunteers and activists who want to purchase renewable energy for their homes and businesses consider signing up with Ethical Electric, a firm that currently sells wind power in four Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia and bills itself as a socially responsible energy supplier. It also has licenses that will allow it to expand to New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Ohio.

Organizing for Action's leaders "are trying to show people that it's easy to make a change," said Tom Matzzie, the president of Ethical Electric and a former Washington director of the liberal group MoveOn.org Political Action. "It's an important role they can play in mobilizing people to participate in the clean-energy economy."

Organizing for Action officials say the group is not accepting money from Ethical Electric. Instead, Matzzie said, OFA is directing the sign-up bonus that Ethical Electric offers to all new partners to another nonprofit -- Community Power Network -- which helps schools, neighborhood groups and other local organizations push for renewable energy.

Meredith McGehee, who examines government ethics at the Campaign Legal Center watchdog group, questions whether it's appropriate for an organization so closely linked to a sitting president to develop ties with one business.

"You can say that developing clean energy is great, but do competitors feel the weight of the presidency being used to undermine their business model?" she said. "It raises questions about the ethical propriety of the use of the president's bully pulpit."

Organizing for Action has no real precedent in American politics. The non-profit, run by former campaign and White House aides, has the goal of mobilizing Obama's legions of 2012 campaign volunteers to advance the president's second-term agenda on immigration, gun control, climate change and other issues.

OFA counts 2.6 million people as having taken at least one action on behalf of the president's agenda this year -- ranging from attending a rally to promoting immigration changes in Congress to making a financial contribution. The group, which can raise unlimited amounts of money, collected nearly $5 million during the first three months of the year.

The group's energy activism comes as the White House tries to sell a sweeping climate-change plan that circumvents Congress after failing to get lawmakers to pass legislation that curbs the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Under the plan unveiled last week, Obama is using his executive powers to impose new limits on carbon-dioxide emissions by new and existing power plants. The plan also increases energy-efficiency standards and boosts the production of renewable energy on federal land.

Environmental groups largely applauded the move, while Republicans and some Democrats say the action is another sign of what they call the president's "war on coal."

Two months ago, OFA took aim at lawmakers who disagree with the president, launching a "climate deniers" website that singles out more than 100 members of Congress.

At the local level, the group has paired with environmental groups in Northern California and in Illinois to encourage county and city governments to add more renewable energy to the available electricity options.

Next week, for instance, OFA volunteers plan to help urge the Santa Rosa City Council, north of San Francisco, to vote to join Sonoma Clean Power, a new public agency with the power to purchase renewable energy from electricity suppliers. Sonoma County officials and two cities within the county already have opted in to the new agency, which would displace Pacific Gas and Electric as the main electricity provider. Pacific Gas and Electric still would distribute the electricity and handle billing.

http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=29215210