03 Dec 2009 Climategate Should Put a Halt to Duke Energy’s Lobbying for Cap-and-Trade

The National Center’s Free Enterprise Project has called on Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers to cease lobbying for cap-and-trade in the wake of revelations regarding the integrity of processes underpinning the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s climate conclusions.

In the Climategate scandal, released documents from a British university reveal what appear to be efforts to manipulate data to support the preexisting views of leading climate researchers.

Raw data without which it is impossible to confirm the accuracy of IPCC findings also has been destroyed.

Duke Energy has said the company’s decision to lobby for cap-and-trade is based on the very IPCC report whose conclusions have now been called into question. A company report says: “…our policy positions are driven by the IPCC peer-reviewed science and by our judgment that this science is not only credible, but that it is accepted by the vast majority of public policymakers who will shape U.S. climate legislation in the years to come.”

“Rogers must exercise his fiduciary responsibility to shareholders by carefully assessing whether he has been duped by a group of rogue climate change scientists,” said Tom Borelli, Ph.D., director of the Free Enterprise Project. “The burden of proof is now on Rogers to show his global warming policy is sound and Duke Energy’s board of directors must hold him accountable.”

Rogers has taken a high-profile role in lobbying for cap-and-trade, including testifying in Congress and appearing in advertising.

“If climate change is proven to be a fraud, the billions of dollars of carbon credits Rogers is seeking from cap-and-trade legislation will be worthless. There is no secondary market for a government contrived commodity such as carbon dioxide,” added Borelli.

Go here for a Free Enterprise Project press release.

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