Climate 411

We told you the opposition was turning up the heat on the climate bill, but their efforts have reached a new low.

It turns out that the lobbying firm that sent forged letters to House Democrats was working for a group that represents coal and electricity companies. The letters were made to look like they came from local advocacy groups, but they were signed by people who had nothing to do with the local groups.

And what looked like one case now involves a  dozen fraudulent letters sent to at least three members of Congress. Two of those members ended up opposing the clean energy legislation.

Get more details in the Greenwire story on the New York Times Web site, and see one of the forged letters [PDF] on the Greenwire site.

Follow us on Twitter to hear our play-by-play of the mark-up of the American Clean Energy and Security Act!  You can find Environmental Defense Fund on Twitter at www.twitter.com/EnvDefenseFund.  

As Tony wrote earlier, the House subcommittee working on climate legislation celebrated Earth Week with a packed schedule of testimony.

One of the more interesting participants was Mayor John Fetterman, from tiny Braddock, Pa., who has become a national champion in the fight to cap carbon pollution. He did a great job explaining that for communities like his, a cap on carbon will be an economic lifeline (see the video). He was joined on the panel by Nat Keohane, EDF’s chief economist.

Here are some wrap-ups:

• Over at PowerShift, Danny Marx live-blogged the day of testimony.
• The hearings were noticed back in Pennsylvania, too. Read what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote about the ads Mayor Fetterman did with EDF and his trip to Washington.
• And taking the broad view, Jimmy Seidita posted on Huffington Post that there’s only one must-do to save the planet: support the Obama administration’s efforts to limit carbon emissions.

We’ll hear more testimony today, including appearances by former GOP Senator John Warner and Al Gore, and next week the subcommittee starts the tough work of marking up the bill.