By Andy Owens
aowens@scbiznews.com
Published May 15, 2009

Days leading up to a mini conference on climate change in Charleston, environmental groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce started working the phones and shotgunning e-mails to journalists across the state.

The Charleston Regional Business Journal received several phone calls and e-mail messages from the U.S. chamber urging journalists to attend. At least two environmental groups called repeatedly and sent multiple e-mails with dire warnings about the “hired guns” the national chamber was employing to skew information on greenhouse gases.

Related story
Dialogue yields no easy answers on climate change legislation

The New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council left a long voice mail in two separate phone calls Wednesday that sounded like the speaker was reading from a list of talking points:

“This event is likely to be very biased and an unbalanced session of climate change denial,” Lauren Zahn said on the voice mail. She went on to offer expert sources that are based in South Carolina.

One group, which might be an environmental group but wouldn’t identify itself after sending its own e-mail, said the U.S. chamber was using the conference “for its denial of the facts about climate science and the irresponsible and alarmist tactics.”

This e-mail carried the subject line “Heads up: Other side of climate story — Charleston Chamber of Commerce event” and was sent to journalists from Greenville to Columbia to Charleston.

Thursday afternoon, the U.S. chamber sent out a news release about the half-day forum that might have been written before the event. The release quoted William Kovacs, the organization’s vice president of Environment, Technology and Regulatory Affairs, but it failed to mention that Kovacs wasn’t at the event, and it didn’t talk specifically about what was said during the conference.

One of the main speakers, Ross Eisenberg, a lawyer and policy executive for the U.S. chamber, addressed some of the criticism the chamber has received over its whistle-stop tour of cities.

While acknowledging that the chamber has been accused of “fearmongering” with its criticism of climate change legislation, Eisenberg said, “Maybe we are, but if we’re right, it’s a problem.”

Locally, the Coastal Conservation League and the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce contacted the Business Journal through normal channels to make the editorial department aware of the upcoming forum and to offer a local perspective.

Ben Moore, program director for the Coastal Conservation League, was as critical of outside environmental groups as he was of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“None of these people know what’s going on in our town or region,” Moore said. “What value is there in folks from D.C. or New York telling us what we need to do on cap-and-trade and renewable energy?”