Koch Bros Putting The Dumb In Freedumb With Their Astroturf Attack On CO Clean Air Efforts
In recent years, the majority of Coloradans have been struggling to breathe clean air, and tailpipe emissions carry much of the blame. Lawmakers have started to take on this threat with a number of clean car standards and incentives coming out of the Governor's office and the state legislature. However, a newly formed coalition of car dealers, the oil and gas industry, and free market advocates are working to put the brakes on clean air policies in Colorado, and they're using a disinformation playbook often used by organizations in the Koch network.
Launched in March, the Freedom to Drive Coalition has fought against Colorado’s adoption of low emission vehicle standards (which the state’s Air Quality Control Commission approved in a unanimous 9-0 vote) and is now battling a complementary effort to adopt zero emission vehicle (ZEV, or electric car) standards that would greatly reduce tailpipe emissions. Air quality in the Front Range — where more than 60 percent of Colorado residents live — has been so bad that it has violated national clean air standards for the last seven years. In 2018 alone, “there were 55 days when Coloradans were warned that exercise outdoors could be damaging to their health due to high ozone levels,” according to Jill Hunsaker Ryan, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). That’s an average of one day per week where the air in this Rocky Mountain state’s most populated counties is so bad, it’s too dangerous to go out for a jog.
A full 30-40 percent of Colorado’s air pollution on high ozone days can be directly attributed to motor vehicles, according to a Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment report. (Another 30-40 percent is attributed to oil and gas operations in the Front Range. State authorities are working separately to reel in those pollutants, and fighting another network of oil and gas industry front groups and trade associations.)
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On the ground and online, the coalition appears to be run by a handful of Colorado-based public affairs professionals, including the former director of the Colorado state chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), whose national group was founded and funded by the petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers. Sean Paige fields press queries about Freedom to Drive from his personal public affairs firm called Affinity Advocacy. Paige spent three years as Deputy Director and Acting Director of Americans for Prosperity Colorado, the state chapter of Charles Koch’s national advocacy and political organizing group. Paige also spent nearly four years as Communications Director for the state Senate Republican majority and state Senate President Kevin Grantham, during which time he generated some measure of controversy by posting AFP materials from official Colorado Senate social media accounts.
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/07/24/freedom-drive-coalition-koch-disinformation-playbook-colorado
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