Monday, December 3, 2012

Woot! Another ALEC member bites the dust

This just in: Another member of the corporate dating service for lawmakers ALEC joined the exodus from the organization. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) announced today that the Solar Energy Industries Association is quitting.

That makes the 47th member to leave ALEC since CMD began exposing the secret and possibly illegal lobbying of state lawmakers by its corporate members.

According to CMD,
In an email to its supporters, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a national trade group for companies involved in solar energy projects, joined ALEC earlier this year to promote bipartisan energy policies, but has decided not renewed its membership. According to the email, ALEC "adopted a stance that intends to take us backwards. The fact is, Americans overwhelmingly support the growth of the solar energy industry and ALEC is clearly out of touch with the way Americans feel. We have not renewed our membership to ALEC and we will work with state legislators to push back on these efforts."
ALEC gets a lot of support from big energy companies that oppose their upstart renewable competitors. ALEC has written a bill to roll back renewable energy standards in 29 states. Writes CMD:
ALEC's "Electricity Freedom Act" claims that renewable energy is "a tax on consumers." Todd Wynn, the director of ALEC's EEA task force, called renewable energy mandates "crony capitalist policies." That's rich, coming from a mouthpiece for an organization that many consider a poster boy for crony capitalism.
Read the whole thing here.