Want to Promote Oil and Gas Use? Hire an Environmentalist -- Like Big Oil Did

(MoneyWatch)  The oil industry's biggest trade group has figured out that 3,000 angry citizens in a senator's hometown are far more powerful than a handful of lobbyists on Capitol Hill. And they've tapped the perfect man for the job of inciting them: the Nature Conservancy's former climate change organizer.

Yes, that's right. Deryck Spooner, who served as the campaign manager for U.S. climate change policy at the Nature Conservancy, will now be working for the American Petroleum Institute. His new position is senior director for external mobilization. That's fancy talk for organizing and orchestrating citizen rallies and other "grassroots" -- more properly, "astroturf" -- community activism aimed at pushing API's priorities with elected officials.

No. 1 on the list: climate change legislation, which the industry fears will raise taxes; push up energy prices; and kill jobs as companies move overseas where greenhouse gas emissions laws are more lax. API's other top concerns include President Obama's proposal to end $36.5 billion in tax breaks for the oil and gas industry; the EPA's recent finding that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger to public health; and restrictions or delays to opening up new areas to offshore drilling.

What's amazing is Spooner's ability to rationalize that he isn't actually switching sides in the climate-change debate. Pay no attention to the fact that he's an ideological wind sock; the move is really all about his love of advocacy, Spooner explained in an interview with Greenwire.

I have worked for vastly different organizations throughout my career. The bottom line is it's all about advocacy, that's what I'm passionate about. Mobilizing and organizing people to influence the public process and public policy is what I truly love to do. At the end of the day, I don't necessarily believe that the views of [the Nature Conservancy] and API are incompatible.

Spooner, who worked for the Nature Conservancy for five years, has also run campaigns for the abortion rights organization NARAL and the AFL-CIO. Perhaps after a run with API, Spooner will take his love of advocacy and give all those anti-union folks a voice before heading off to join Focus on the Family.

Spooner will have his work cut out for him. API could use a few pointers and some finesse in the how-to-run-a-rally-without-letting-on-that-you're-behind-the-whole-thing department.

Last August, for instance, a number of Energy Citizens rallies attracted thousands of folks concerned that climate change legislation would hurt the industry they work for. But these supposedly spontaneous rallies lost all credibility when a letter sent to API members, later shared with Greenpeace, revealed that the oil group paid for and helped organize the events. The majority of the local organizers, it turned out, were registered oil-industry lobbyists. Spooner's in an ideal position to help API avoid future missteps -- and he could also bring API some inside intelligence from the other side in the climate-change wars. The Nature Conservancy, after all, lists passing carbon cap-and-trade legislation as its main goal. Spooner knows their talking points and strategy and will now use that to help API achieve the opposite result.

Photo of colorful oil barrels by Flickr user Magnera, CC 2.0