Comments on: Houston’s Energy Citizens Company Picnic

By: Texas Climate News

Texas Climate News — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:20:17 +0000

[...] was Sarah McDonald, a staff member of Austin-based Public Citizen Texas. On that group’s TexasVox blog, she said the rally reminded her of a “company picnic” and confessed that her favorite [...]

By: Year in Review: Top Texas Vox Stories of 2009 « TexasVox: The Voice of Public Citizen in Texas

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:59:22 +0000

[...] ground-up movement against a federal climate change bill. But it turned out that the event was more of a company picnic than a grassroots campaign; they blocked our entry and wouldn’t even let in the “real” anti-cap and trade [...]

By: Houston’s Energy Citizens Rally (and why no evaluation by Chronicle editorial board?) | North Houston Tea Party Patriots

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:51:44 +0000

[...] also disagree with Public Citizen’s take that the industry folks attending were not knowledgeable or motivated about cap-and-tax. [...]

By: Houston’s Energy Citizens Rally (and why was the Houston Chronicle editorial board silent?) — MasterResource

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 06:03:10 +0000

[...] disagree with Public Citizen’s take that the industry folks attending were not knowledgeable or motivated about [...]

By: Houston's Energy Citizens Company Picnic « TexasVox: The Voice of … | Citizen watch live today

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:18:51 +0000

[...] to break the dweller Petroleum Institute’s Energy Citizen event. Original post: Houston's Energy Citizens Company Picnic « TexasVox: The Voice of … Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: and-trade, bill-currently, crash-the, energy, event, [...]

By: Coal Industry Fires Bonner, Oil Companies do Serious Astroturfing « The Dernogalizer

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:30:32 +0000

[...] Public Citizen Texas managed to sneak into the rally, and they have excellent reports and video here, here, and here. Check out this small snippet from Sarah McDonald’s [...]

By: Greenhoof » Blog Archive » The Climate Post: Reality is the toughest wedge issue

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:39:41 +0000

[...] groups backed the event. Similar rallies are expected in 19 states in the next few weeks. An NGO sneaked around the grounds, concluding the event was a large “company [...]

By: Big Oil’s Big Day in Houston

Big Oil’s Big Day in Houston — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:28:39 +0000

[...] So, the Houston energy companies had their big company picnic yesterday in opposition to the climate change bill. The event was closed to everyone but energy company employees (or as the signs said, “Energy Citizens”). But Sarah McDonald, of Public Citizen, managed to sneak in and posted this report. [...]

By: david

david — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:37:02 +0000

Houston has suffered its hottest summer on record http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/climate/reviews/080109pns.txt . I would imagine even the strongest of faith are feeling the global warming heat…

By: Would 1.21 Gigawatts a Day Get Us Back to the Future? « THE CLIMATE POST

Would 1.21 Gigawatts a Day Get Us Back to the Future? « THE CLIMATE POST — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:32:00 +0000

[...] groups backed the event. Similar rallies are expected in 19 states in the next few weeks. An NGO sneaked around the grounds, concluding the event was a large “company [...]

By: Public Citizen in the news: energy edition « Public Citizen

Public Citizen in the news: energy edition « Public Citizen — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:19:56 +0000

[...] then there’s the astroturf lobbying event our Texas team uncovered earlier this week. On Tuesday, they drove down to Houston to crash the American Petroleum [...]

By: Kevin Grandia: Astroturfing Oil Company Picnics – all the intel you need | Loans in

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:56:27 +0000

[...] Since then, I have received a lot of emails from oil company employees who know these fake rallies are wrong. Members of the Texas Public Citizen group attended the rally, and as they rightly report these were more of a company picnic than a spontaneous uprising of citizens. [...]

By: Jay Torrence

Jay Torrence — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:31:00 +0000

Nice work TexasVox! You have given us new insight about what it means to work for an old-guard energy company. Clearly, sharing (or at least agreeing with) the corrupt politics of your employer is a requirement for employment at these dinosaurs of industry. This really shows how the corrupting influence of Big Oil works both ways, toward Washington by unduly influencing our elected officials and into the rank and file by demanding lock-step support of their policies.

Keep up the great work!

By: Wonk Room » The WonkLine: August 20, 2009

Wonk Room » The WonkLine: August 20, 2009 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:07:11 +0000

[...] Citizen Texas crashed the American Petroleum Intitute’s “grassroots” rally of 2500 oil employees against clean energy [...]

By: Susan Stewart

Susan Stewart — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:37:41 +0000

ah, never mind, it’s on their front page! cool!

By: Susan Stewart

Susan Stewart — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:35:24 +0000

great work! i’ve seen “friends for coal” outside of a senate hearing on mountain top removal…i don’t know who paid them to be there, probably some front group for the coal industry, but they had t-shirts and they all looked the same, but some said “friends” and some said “citizens for coal”. i guess they couldn’t figure out what to call their rent-a-mob before they started printing out shirts.

i volunteer for 1Sky, and we’re all trying to brace ourselves for the upcoming craziness…astroturf is getting way out of hand. i’ll pass this blog on to them, if they haven’t seen it already. thanx for all u do!

By: Industry “Grassroots” Rally is Company Event « Public Citizen

Industry “Grassroots” Rally is Company Event « Public Citizen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:04:24 +0000

[...] Read more about it at our sister blog, TexasVoxorg. [...]

By: Houston’s Energy Citizens company picnic « Public Citizen

Houston’s Energy Citizens company picnic « Public Citizen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:38:01 +0000

[...] Cross-posted from TexasVox.org. [...]

By: Southern Beale

Southern Beale — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:39:33 +0000

When I said I wasn’t with an energy company but was a member of the media, he said I was misrepresenting myself and summarily kicked me out.

OMG! They should appreciate someone “misrepresenting themselves,” seeing as how they sent phony letters and petitions to Congress pretending to be minority and senior citizens groups!!

By: Mike G.

Mike G. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:45:25 +0000

Excellent post! Pretty much confirms everything you’d suspect about these astroturfers…

For instance, not surprised to hear there were folks present who had absolutely no idea what they were there for, since they were pretty much all there because their boss told them to go.

But I’m still surprised that they didn’t allow anyone not from an oil company in… ha! What a sham.

Seriously, really great post. Drop me a line when you get the full video put together, I’ll happily post about it on the Greenpeace blog.