Emails Show Obama's EPA and Left-Wing Political Groups Coordinated Political Attacks on Energy Companies

"Let me tell you folks, I've got all sorts of government agencies to attack you with. It's like a dream come true!"

Corruption and political thuggery-- it's the Obama way.

From The Washington Free Beacon (via Ace of Spades):

Internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emails show extensive collaboration between top agency officials and leading environmentalist groups, including overt efforts to coordinate messaging and pressure the fossil fuel industry. 

The emails, obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, could fuel an ongoing controversy over EPA policies that critics say are biased against traditional sources of energy. 

Emails show EPA used official events to help environmentalist groups gather signatures for petitions on agency rulemaking, incorporated advance copies of letters drafted by those groups into official statements, and worked with environmentalists to publicly pressure executives of at least one energy company. 

Nancy Grantham, director of public affairs for EPA Region 1, which covers New England, asked an organizer for the Sierra Club’s New Hampshire chapter to share the group’s agenda so EPA could adjust its messaging accordingly in an email dated March 12, 2012. 

“If you could, it would great [sic] if you can send me an email describing what you would like to do in early April in NH–that way I can coordinate messaging with our air offices here and at HQ,” Grantham wrote. 

Critics of the agency and its nonprofit allies were surprised by the cooperation. 

“The level of coordination in these documents is shocking,” EELI said in a statement. 

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, said the emails suggest that the EPA is straying from its mission by working hand-in-hand with hardline green groups. 

“It’s unfortunate that EPA has spent more of its resources promoting and coordinating a political agenda with environmentalists instead of doing its job,” Pompeo said in an emailed statement. 

“In Kansas, we expect public officials to serve the public interest, not the interests of radical environmentalist groups.” 

The documents also reveal some of the internal deliberations behind recent controversial EPA decisions, such as the locations of public hearings on an agency rule imposing stringent emissions limits for power plants.  

The agency came under fire from legislators representing coal-producing states for holding those hearings far from regions where most of the nation’s coal is produced. 

“Instead of the EPA holding a coal hearing in the heart of Coal Country, Kentucky, he has chosen locations such as San Francisco and Washington, D.C.,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said at the time. 

McConnell accused EPA of “once again showing its contempt for Kentucky’s coal miners and their families.” 

Emails released by EELI show that EPA decided on the locations for those hearings after consulting with leading environmentalist groups that advocate the complete phase-out of coal power.

Read the whole article at the above link. It's very detailed.

It's all just one more day in the Era of Obama... Leftist thuggery coordinated with Obama's federal agencies. And the more we let the Left get away with, the more they're going to do it.