Greenpeace uncovers "astroturf" campaign to challenge US climate bill

The scale of the challenge faced by the Obama administration as it seeks to secure support for the Waxman-Markey Climate Change bill was again underlined late last week. It emerged oil and gas industry lobbyists are planning a nationwide campaign designed to create the impression of widespread grassroots opposition to the legislation.

A leaked email obtained by Greenpeace USA reveals that the American Petroleum Institute (API) is preparing a series of "Energy Citizen" rallies over the next few weeks, intended to heap pressure on key senators ahead of the crucial Senate vote in late September.

Greenpeace accused the API of engaging in "astroturfing" – the controversial tactic of creating the illusion of a largely spontaneous grassroots protest that has in fact been organised by corporate-backed groups. The practice has been widely accused of undermining President Obama's efforts to pass universal healthcare legislation and environmentalists are increasingly concerned that his climate change programme could face a similar fate.

In the email, API president Jack Gerard urged the group's member companies to encourage staff to attend the planned rallies and to also extend invites to " all vendors, suppliers, contractors, retirees and others who have an interest in our success".

He stresses that attendees will have to do little more than turn up, explaining that API will provide all the "up-front resources" and has appointed "a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns, corporations and interest groups" to manage the events.

The email also calls on member companies to not disclose details of the planned events, urging them to "please treat this information as sensitive and ask those in your company to do so as well… we don't want critics to know our game plan".

The plans will be of particular concern to the Obama administration as the API includes several members of the US Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP), a business group that supports the Waxman-Markey bill and had managed to sign up a number of influential oil and energy firms.

In a letter to Gerard, Greenpeace USA executive director Phil Radford requested clarification on the extent to which those API members that are also committed to US-CAP were involved in the development of the Energy Citizen rallies.

"It would logically appear that the Energy Citizen campaign's objective is to defeat climate change regulation," he wrote. "This goal runs contrary to several prominent API members' public support for climate action, namely Shell, BP America, ConocoPhillips, General Electric and Siemens. These companies are all a part of the pro-cap-and-trade US Climate Action Partnership, which has publicly supported the Waxman-Markey bill… Can you explain the contradictory objectives of supporting cap and trade on one hand and working to defeat it on the other? And also reveal if any API members opted out of the Energy Citizen effort?"

ConocoPhillips has already distanced itself from US-CAP, however, and a spokesman for Shell told the Guardian newspaper that it would not be taking part in the rallies.

The revelations further highlight the intense battle on Capitol Hill surrounding the climate change bill and come just days after it emerged a Capitol Hill lobbying firm, Bonner & Associates, had been involved in sending fake letters to legislators protesting against the proposed legislation.

They also follow new research from the Center for Public Integrity, which found that 460 new business and advocacy groups began lobbying on climate chan ge issues in the run-up to the House vote on Waxman-Markey in June. The surge in interest took the total number of registered parties lobbying around the bill to more than 1,100.