"Progressive" Policy Institute Has Former NAM/Coal Lobbyist Fighting Climate Lawsuits For Big Oil

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As part of a growing trend of lawsuits over climate change impacts, cities and states across the U.S. are seeking damages from oil, gas, and coal companies whose products drive the crisis and which for years evidently engaged in disinformation and denial campaigns to stall climate action. Now the fossil fuel industry is pushing back, taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook to rein in that liability litigation, and getting help from an unexpected source.

Behind the scenes, politically affiliated groups are quietly providing support. One of the outfits promoting the efforts to counter the slew of climate lawsuits is none other than the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), a center-left Washington, D.C.-based think tank with links to the Democratic party.
PPI’s Former Coal Lobbyist

Phil Goldberg, PPI’s director of its Center for Civil Justice, is leading the charge. For over a year, PPI’s website has been showcasing Goldberg’s work attacking climate litigation, which he calls “copycat climate suits.” Goldberg is a former lobbyist for coal giant Peabody Energy, which his law firm still represents. And while Goldberg’s bio on PPI’s website lists him as a partner in the corporate law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, there’s no mention of his hiring earlier this year by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) to serve as special counsel in its fight against climate litigation. NAM’s Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, which it launched in 2017, targets climate lawsuits against the manufacturing industry’s energy sector.

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Growing out of the now-defunct Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), PPI is one facet in the Democratic Party wing that promotes “Third Way” free market, corporate-friendly policies to balance the party’s more leftist tendencies. Former President Bill Clinton previously chaired the DLC. PPI’s website, which greets its visitors with the banner “radically pragmatic,” does not publicize its funding sources. But the group’s funding seems to come at least in part through its parent organization, the Third Way Foundation, whose tax forms states it is “doing business as the Progressive Policy Institute.”

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/06/20/democratic-think-tank-progressive-policy-institute-climate-lawsuits

[EndGOPPropaganda]

1. NAM, Third Way, and PPI

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