Arch Coal Made $10,000 Gift to Energy & Environment Legal

03/11/16

Arch Coal Inc., the nation’s second biggest coal miner, donated $10,000 to a Washington D.C.-based legal group known for filing lawsuits against climate scientists.

Arch, which filed for chapter 11 protection in January, made the gift in 2014 to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, a nonprofit formerly known as the American Tradition Institute, according to recently filed bankruptcy court papers. The connection between Arch and E&E Legal was reported last month by the watchdog group, the Center for Media and Democracy.

In this June 2014 photo, Caterpillar front-loading machinery operates on mounds of coal at Arch Coal Terminals in Kentucky.
Luke Sharrett/Getty Images

But until the recent bankruptcy filing, it wasn’t clear how much Arch had donated to E&E Legal,known for using Freedom of Information Act laws to unearth emails among climate scientists, environmentalists and regulators.

In perhaps its most famous case to date, E&E Legal sued the University of Virginia to access the emails of meteorologist Michael Mann, the author of a famous”hockey stick” study that showed global temperatures have risen in conjunction with our use of fossil fuels. Virginia’s Supreme Court ultimately sided with the school in 2014.

Craig Richardson, E&E Legal’s executive director, said that Arch’s 2014 donation “was for general support” and amounted to less than 4% of that year’s contributions to the nonprofit. Apart from the donation, “we have no relationship with Arch Coal,” he told Bankruptcy Beat.

Arch spokeswoman Logan Bonacorsi said the the company has provided “millions of dollars of funding in recent years” to a range of organizations focused on addressing climate concerns by advancing low-carbon coal technologies.

“We believe strongly that technology rather than excessive, premature and costly regulation is the solution to achieving a low-carbon future,” Ms. Bonacorsi said.

This isn’t the first instance of a bankrupt coal company disclosing payments to a climate change skeptic. In October, The Wall Street Journal reported coal company Alpha Natural Resources Inc. paid lawyer Chris Horner $18,600 before it filed for chapter 11 this summer. The payment followed an Intercept article by Lee Fang on how the coal industry was funding think tanks that deny climate change.

Mr. Horner, senior legal fellow at E&E Legal and author of books like“Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed,” is one of the industry’s most visible defenders, the “longtime go-to guy on global warming extremism,” according to Rush Limbaugh.

Reached Friday, Mr. Horner said: “I am unaware of any relationship the company has or doesn’t have with E&E Legal.” When asked whether Arch supported his work, he said: “the records likely show Arch Coal is not a legal client of mine.”

Write to Patrick Fitzgerald at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @PatFitzgerald23

UPDATE: This post has been updated to add a comment from an Arch spokeswoman. 

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