On May 5, the period for submitting comments on whether—and if so, how—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from biomass power plants, expired. The agency received more than 7,000 comments. While I have read only a small portion of those comments to date, by far the most wrongheaded are comments submitted by Margaret Sheehan, the Massachusetts attorney who led the organization Stop Spewing Carbon, a group heavily invested in fighting biomass—not coal—power and in the results of the Manomet study (see story).
How heavily invested? According to journalist Genevieve Fraser, very.
In her post on the Farm, Field and Forest blog, “An Environmental Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Leading Anti-Biomass Proponent Tied to Oil/Gas/Coal and Mining Industry,” Fraser connects the dots between Sheehan, a family foundation heavily invested in both fossil fuel stocks and non-profits with anti-biomass agendas. While I will be offering a high level summary of Fraser’s blog in this piece, I highly recommend you read her entire post.
Here is a rough outline of the story that Fraser tells.
- Until recently, Sheehan was Executive Director of the Sheehan Family Foundation.
- The Sheehan Family Foundation is heavily invested in fossil fuel stocks, many of them in the developing world where environmental controls are non-existent. As Fraser points out, “though Margaret Sheehan talks an environmental talk, she has, through the Foundation, financially supported to the tune of millions and millions of dollars, companies that pollute the earth in every conceivable fashion.” In addition coal, oil, gas, mining, tobacco and PVC company stocks, the Foundation is also heavily invested in companies that provide infrastructure and transportation to oil and gas companies, all of whom spew carbon in order to extract and transport fossil fuels, which then spew more carbon.
- The Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences (MCCS) received funding from the Sheehan Family Trust.
- On November 10, 2009, as the MCCS was working on its report on the GHG impacts of biomass combustion, Margaret Sheehan wrote the organization a letter, which she copied to Massachusetts’ Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles. In part, the letter read, I am “former Executive Director of the Sheehan Family Foundation of Kingston, which has provided grants to MCCS over the years. It would be unfortunate if MCCS proceeded with this study without an understanding of full range of public health and environmental impacts of biomass burning as a means of generating electricity. Even though these impacts may be beyond the scope of work for the study, the study is intertwined with critical policy and regulatory issues that affect the future of our citizens and the planet.”
- Seven months, later, the MCCS report was released, and Sheehan’s group, Stop Spewing Carbon (now the Biomass Accountability Project) had all the fodder she needed to affect “critical policy and regulatory issues.” It should be noted, however, that while Sheehan argues the Manomet study is undisputed science, the study itself was not peer reviewed. It’s view of forest and environmental science has also been under attack for its faulty logic.
- Massachusetts relied heavily on the Manomet study’s conclusions when it—under Bowles’ leadership—restricted renewable energy credits for biomass power plants.
“What Sheehan’s real motives are,” writes Fraser, “only time will tell.” The evidence laid out by Fraser certainly provides reasons to wonder, though, if Massachusetts' new policy is based on science or on politics and what role Sheehan played.
Sheehan’s comments to the EPA demonstrate that she's attempting to leverage the success she had in Massachusetts nationwide. In her comments, she assures the EPA that the science on the issue of "dirty biomass" is "incontrovertible" (see other post). She also gets it wrong in other ways. She argues, for instance, that “the industry is explicitly and obviously targeting poor, disadvantaged, and rural communities,” where they believe they “will encounter little opposition and find an uninformed public.”
Let me state the obvious. Bioenergy companies are locating their facilities in rural communities for one reason and one reason only: because forests—the source of their supply—are located in rural communities.
Are the people living in these areas disproportionately poor? Sometimes. Ultimately, though, the addition of bioenergy facilities will help diversify these economies, making them stronger and more prosperous and giving them the resources they need to protect their own interests.
Once again, though, Sheehan is selective in her opposition to GHG sources. She feels compelled to protect poor people in rural forest-reliant communities from nefarious bioenergy companies. Poor people in rural coal-reliant communities, however, communities that have been devastated by the downhill effects of mountaintop mining, for instance, don’t seem to deserve the same protections.
Comments
Bill
06-19-2011
At last the turth about Meg Sheehan comes to light. Politics as usual but the truth always wins out..
Comments
Henry
07-13-2011
Yup, sure enough. Ten years of tax forms on the website http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/PubApps/search.php . Sheehan’s family foundation is invested in some ugly stuff, including offshore oil drilling, mining, cement, and steel. When she was executive director of her family foundation, she certainly could have influenced the foundation’s investments. If she is as motivated by environmental ethics as her activism suggests, you gotta wonder why she didn’t put her money where her mouth is.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. In the internet age, we all live in glass houses.
Comments
Dear Environmentalists: You Won. Now Let’s Do Some
09-09-2011
[...] funded by a family foundation conflicted by self interest (see Suz-Anne Kinney’s post, Holding Margaret Sheehan Accountable on Biomass). The result was a study with parameters so narrowly designed that the ansswer was virtually [...]
Suz-Anne Kinney
Forest2Market: July 14, 2023
