Oil lobby shows that it hasn’t given up on the climate-change fight

[Forkboy]

ATHENS, Ohio - The oil lobby was sponsoring rallies with free lunches, free concerts, and speeches warning that a climate-change bill could ravage the US economy.

Professional “campaigners’’ hired by the coal industry were giving away T-shirts praising coal-fired power.

But when environmentalists showed up in this college town - closer than ever to congressional passage of a climate-change bill, in the middle of the green movement’s biggest political test in a generation - they provided . . . a sedate panel discussion.

And they gave away stickers.

The Senate is expected to take up legislation in September that would cap greenhouse-gas emissions. That fight began in blazing earnest last week, with a blitz of TV ads and public events in the Midwest and Mountain West.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/09/01/oil_lobby_shows_that_it_hasnt_given_up_on_the_climate_change_fight/