In smog battle, industry gets help from unlikely source: black business group

[mahatmakanejeeves]

In smog battle, industry gets help from unlikely source: black business group

Health & Science

By Joby Warrick September 28 at 8:55 PM 

For years, the air over central Pittsburgh has ranked among the country’s dirtiest, with haze and soot that regularly trigger spikes in asthma attacks, especially among the urban poor. So it might have seemed odd that a black business group would choose this spot to denounce proposed restrictions on smog.

But that’s exactly what the head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce did this month. Chamber President Harry C. Alford appeared before some of Pittsburgh’s African American leaders to urge opposition to a White House plan for tougher limits on air pollution. Then he went on radio to deliver the same appeal. ... “Why do we impose these ­massive, arbitrary rules?” Alford asked.

Despite the unlikely venue, the message was anything but unusual for Alford, a veteran of multiple campaigns to quash regulations intended to improve air quality or fight climate change. Since early summer, Alford has delivered the same pitch in multiple cities, blasting a plan to impose limits on ozone, a pollutant that contributes to urban smog and aggravates breathing disorders, particularly among the elderly and very young.
....

Alford’s organization declines to give detailed information about the NBCC’s membership or sources of income, although records filed by the group show more than $800,000 in contributions over the past decade from Exxon Mobil. At the group’s 2015 national conference in August, a list of sponsors given to attendees included a number of major fossil-fuel interests, including Koch Industries, owned by oil magnates and conservative activists Charles and David Koch. ... Such donations make up as much as 80 percent of the group’s revenue in some years, tax records show, and the NBCC has channeled its money into causes that favor fossil-fuel interests. For example, the NBCC, gave $50,000 last year to a Florida organization that sought to impose additional costs and restrictions on homeowners who want to install solar panels on their roofs.

[MisterP]

1. this seems to be a pattern among shills these days: it's racist to oppose the corpos, ya see!

Last edited Wed Sep 30, 2015, 12:04 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-solar-race-20150209-story.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027132448
lily-white Cheviot Hills apparently poured money into one Damien Goodmon to keep the Expo Line away from Westside LA through constant barratry; with all these cases there was no talk on or off DU of "white fragility" or Dylann Roof, and Young and the Florida NAACP are much more established than BLM or Outside Agitators

but it's interesting to see what does and doesn't get traction: an actual Zimbabwean mouthing ZANUite spewing points on Cecil the Lion and how it was white privilege to think wildlife needs protecting got shot down HARD

[Nihil]

2. Just another astroturf group for the fossil fuel corporations.

So this one has "Black" in its name? It's still no different from the rest.

Corrupt little people being paid to sacrifice the lives of other little people
for the sake of the profits of the big people.