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Monday, January 30, 2012

Conservative, business-backed group behind climate-teaching bill, others surfacing in states

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that "anti-science bills" that would mandate teaching of climate change denial as a credible "theoretical alternative" to human-caused climate change have popped up in several state legislatures over the past several years. Steve Horn reports for Truthout, a liberal news service, that all the bills came from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, which holds meetings for state legislators and lobbyists.

Along with explanation of this trend, Horn provides a round-up of what happened in seven mostly rural states where bills were introduced. He reports the Center for Media and Democracy found more than 800 "model" bills and resolutions that came from ALEC. The center found that corporations, which fund almost all of ALEC's operations, sit on all of the group's task forces and craft legislation that legislators can introduce it as their own ideas.

The climate bill is known as the "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act," Horn reports. It proposes, among other things, that climate-change information should be: "presented in language appropriate for education rather than for propagandizing, not be designed to change student behavior, attitudes or values, and not include instruction in political action skills nor encourage political action activities."

The bill, or "crucial language found within it," has been passed in three states: Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota. Horn reports sponsors and co-sponsors from six states where the ALEC bill was proposed received a total of $44,409 in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry, which wrote the bill, Horn reports. (Read more)

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