CLIMATE PROPAGANDA Foreign Billionaire-Backed Climate Org Pressuring Broadcasters To Censor Ads Critical Of Biden’s EV Mandate
Home2024February18Foreign Billionaire-Backed Climate Org Pressuring Broadcasters To Censor Ads Critical Of Biden’s EV Mandate
Foreign Billionaire-Backed Climate Org Pressuring Broadcasters To Censor Ads Critical Of Biden’s EV Mandatet
7 hours ago Guest Blogger 12 Comments
NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda.
Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate Power until 2023, a spokesperson for Climate Power previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
AFPM launched its seven-figure ad campaign designed to highlight and criticize the administration’s EV policies on Tuesday. The ads, which describe Biden’s policies as an EV mandate, are airing in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, Montana and Washington, D.C.
Climate Power’s warning letter to local affiliates states that the broadcasters “must remove these ads from the air immediately” because “there is no pending federal ‘car ban,’ and to claim otherwise is patently false and intentionally misleading.” The letter suggests that AFPM’s ads could be in violation of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules, and instructs the broadcasters to contact Climate Power — an Internal Revenue Service-recognized 501(c)4 that is spending more than $80 million to tout Biden’s climate policies ahead of the 2024 presidential election — to confirm that the ads are no longer running on their stations. (RELATED: Left-Wing Billionaire’s Nonprofit Is Pushing A TikTok Campaign Against American Energy)
February 13, 2024
VIA E-MAIL
RE: False American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers Advertisements
I am the Chief Operating Officer of Climate Power, an organization dedicated to encouraging
leaders to take immediate bold climate action and exposing climate deniers and their oil and gas
lobby allies. I write on behalf of Climate Power regarding two blatantly false advertisements
currently being run on your station by American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers
(“
AFPM
”).
1
These advertisements include obvious lies aimed at deceiving the public and must
be pulled from the air immediately.
AFPM’s advertisements falsely state that “President Biden’s EPA is rushing to ban new
gas-powered cars.”
2
The ads ask viewers to “tell [President Biden] to stop his EPA’s car ban.”
3
However, there is no pending federal “car ban,” and to claim otherwise is patently false and
intentionally misleading.
As support, AFPM opaquely cites the New York Times and states
“EPA Proposal Designed to End Use of Gas Cars.”
4
But no New York Times article supports
this claim.
5
AFPM’s attempt to imply the existence of a New York Times article belies the truth:
there is no support for their claim because the Environmental Protection Agency (“
EPA
”) has not
proposed a “ban” on new gas-powered cars.
A recent Politifact fact check confirmed that it is “wrong to say there is a ‘Biden mandate’ to
replace gasoline-powered cars with [electric vehicles].”
6
In truth, the EPA’s policies focus on
1
The ads are available here:
All of Us
, YouTube,
(last accessed
Feb. 13, 2024);
Open Roads
, YouTube,
(last accessed Feb. 13,
2024).
2
All of Us
at 0:03;
Open Roads
at 0:10.
3
All of Us
at 0:14;
Open Roads
at 0:22.
4
All of Us
at 0:03.
5
Search: EPA Proposal Designed to End Use of Gas Cars, N.Y. Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&query=EPA%20proposal%20designed%20to%20end%20use%20
of%20gas%20cars&sort=best
(last accessed Feb. 12, 2024).
6
Donald Trump’s Of -Base Claims About Electric Car ‘Mandates’ and Markets
, P
OLITIFACT
(Oct. 11, 2023),
https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/oct/11/donald-trumps-off-base-claims-about-electric-car-m/
.
emissions, not technology; the standards “wouldn’t ban gasoline-fueled powertrains.”
7
Even if
this was the goal, the EPA does not have the authority to demand such a mandate.
8
Under no
stretch of the imagination would the EPA’s proposed emission standards “ban new
gas-powered cars.” These ads are baseless and deceptive.
Grasping for straws, the AFPM likely seeks to make hay over the fact that the EPA, over 10
months ago, proposed new emissions standards for passenger cars, large pick-up trucks, and vans
starting model year 2027.
9
The Clean Air Act
requires
the EPA to set emission standards.
10
Emission standards make automakers ensure the total number of vehicles they sell each year do
not exceed a certain emissions limit.
11
Emission standards do
not
ban the sales of new gas
cars
.
Unlike candidates, independent organizations like AFPM do not have a “right to command the
use of broadcast facilities.”
12
Because you need not air these advertisements, your station bears
responsibility for their content when you do grant access.
13
You have a duty “to protect the public
from false, misleading or deceptive advertising.”
14
Failure to prevent the airing of “false and
misleading advertising” may be “probative of an underlying abdication of licensee
responsibility” that can be cause for the loss of a station’s license.
15
You must remove these ads from the air immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter,
and please contact us immediately at
202-964-3737
to confirm that these advertisements are no
longer appearing on your station.
Very truly yours,
Jill Shesol, Chief Operating Officer
Climate Power
7
Id.
8
E.P.A. Lays Out Rules to Turbocharge Sales of Electric Cars and Trucks
, N.Y. T
IMES
(Apr. 12, 2023),
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/climate/biden-electric-cars-epa.html#:~:text=The%20proposed%20tailpipe%2
0pollution%20limits,be%20all%2Delectric%20by%202032
9
Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles,
Env’t Protection Agency, 88 Fed. Reg. 29184 (proposed Apr. 13, 2023) (to be codified at 40 CFR pts. 85, 86, 600,
1036, 1037, and 1066).
10
42 U.S.C. §7401
et seq.
(1970).
11
Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later,
supra
note 8.
12
See CBS v. DNC
, 412 U.S. 94, 113 (1973).
13
See Felix v. Westinghouse Radio Stations
, 186 F.2d 1, 6 (3rd Cir.), cert. denied, 314 U.S. 909 (1950).
14
Licensee
Responsibility with Respect to the Broadcast of False, Misleading or Deceptive Advertising, 74 F.C.C.2d 623
(1961).
15
Cosmopolitan Broad. Corp. v. FCC d
, 581 F.2d 917, 927 (D.C. Cir. 1978).
Page 2
1
Climate Power strongly disputes that the Biden administration is imposing EV mandates, but the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed tailpipe emissions standards would effectively require 67% of all light-duty vehicles sold after model year 2032 to be electric, according to the agency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also proposed its own aggressive update to fuel economy standards that would force manufacturers to substantially increase the fuel efficiencies of their fleets to an extent that effectively makes the policy an “EV mandate,” Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Energy Research Dan Kish previously told the DCNF.
“These ads are filled with lies meant to scare Americans about a ‘car ban’ that doesn’t exist – and they should be taken off the air,” Climate Power Executive Director Lori Lodes said in a Tuesday statement. “The Biden administration isn’t banning gas-powered cars or appliances – they’re fighting against corporate polluters to make our air and water cleaner and give Americans more affordable alternatives to fossil fuel. Big Oil knows that and is intentionally misleading Americans to protect their obscene profits.”
Since 2021, the Berger Action Fund, a 501(c)4 affiliated with Wyss, has given about $40 million to the Fund for a Better Future, a grantmaking organization that shells out funds to support a wide range of left-of-center causes and organizations, according to Politico. The Berger Action Fund has also given more than $77 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a “dark money” organization managed by the for-profit consultancy Arabella Advisors that does not have to disclose its donors, since 2021.
Because Wyss is a Swiss citizen, he is not allowed by law to directly donate to American political candidates or political committees, but the activities of his nonprofit and associated organizations have allowed him to quietly become one of the most influential individual donors in American politics today, according to The Associated Press.
In May 2021, Americans for Public Trust — a government watchdog and transparency group — filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Wyss, his nonprofits and affiliated organizations have “violated fundamental compliance and transparency rules” governing political spending by foreign nationals.
Climate Power did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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