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WASHINGTON D.C. — In a late decision yesterday evening, the awards committee of the American Energy Alliance accepted a last-minute nomination for the 2011 Lump of Coal Award, which AEA is giving to the enemies of affordable domestic energy. Originally slated to share today’s award were Senators John Kerry (D-Venezuela) and Lindsay Graham (RINO-SC) for their tireless effort to impose the largest tax increase in American history in the form of the cap-and-trade energy tax. New developments, however, prompted AEA to replace the good senators with today’s honoree, Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon.

“Aubrey McClendon just doesn’t get it.  America has more than enough natural gas, coal, and oil to supply our needs for the next few centuries. But rather than work collaboratively with America’s other affordable energy producers to beat back regulations that threaten our energy security and stifle job creation, Aubrey turns cannibal,” noted AEA President Tom Pyle in today’s announcement.

“In 2007, when anti-coal propaganda was surfacing all over Texas, it turned out that Aubrey McClendon was funding it. In recent days, he’s been at it again. An anti-coal ad campaign sponsored by the American Lung Association that features a coughing baby in a dirty carriage has been airing across the country. The money for the ad, of course, came from Aubrey McClendon.

“The EPA and the Obama administration are trying to kill the coal industry, and Aubrey is aiding and abetting them with these senseless campaigns. With friends like him in the energy sector, who needs enemies? It’s time for Aubrey McClendon to stop playing regulatory footsies with Lisa Jackson and realize that the green energy radicals are just as willing to shut down Chesapeake’s shale gas plays as they are coal-fired power plants.

“Regulating clean coal to death should not be Chesapeake’s competitive strategy. And supporting the radical ideologues who want to use the Clean Air Act to shut down America’s carbon-based energy is a game of Russian roulette for Aubrey McClendon. When the EPA starts hitting his pockets and regulating hydraulic fracturing, he won’t be able to find enough Chinese financiers to bail him out that time.

“For his penchant for crony capitalism and his crass violation of the 11th energy commandment — thou shalt not attack thy fellow energy producer — Aubrey McClendon deserves a chunk of Christmas coal. Maybe he will learn to appreciate this vitally important resource as a result.”

The American Energy Alliance previewed the inaugural 2011 “Lump of Coal Awards” for energy stupidity, which will be announced December 8-23, 2011. To learn more about coal’s important place in America’s energy future,click here. To learn the facts about coal production in the United States, click here.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON D.C. — Late into the night on Wednesday, December 14, the American Energy Alliance award committee poured over the policy ideas of the top contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination, desperately searching for the most deserving recipient for this year’s “Lump of Coal” Award.

After at least a dozen painstaking, caffeine-induced hours the committee determined that no single candidate stood out as more deserving than the others.  Hence, today’s “Lump of Coal” is awarded to Governors Jon Huntsman (UT), Rick Perry (TX) and Mitt Romney (MA), Reps. Michelle Bachmann (MN) and Ron Paul (TX), Speaker Newt Gingrich (Tiffany & Co.), and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (PA).

“There comes the time in every award committee’s life that they must choose,” noted AEA President Tom Pyle in the award announcement.  “But this year, the Republican electorate seems to be having a difficult time arriving at a frontrunner, and our awards committee feels their pain.

“So the decision was made to give each GOP candidate a “Lump of Coal” for their past energy failures and present energy follies, though the committee has determined to revoke the award should any candidate repent at tonight’s Fox News debate, hosted in Sioux City.

“Jon Huntsman has been all over the map on climate change and brags about moving Utah toward solar energy.  Newt Gingrich loves ethanol and Nancy Pelosi. Mitt Romney thinks we are “using too much oil.”  Rick Perry is in Pickens’ pockets and refused to walk back his Texas predecessor’s renewable standards mandate. Michelle Bachmann can’t decide whether she likes subsidies or not. Ron Paul goes around signing windmills to make Iowans happy, and Rick Santorum has backed flex-fuel mandates and wants to subsidize flex-fuel stations.

“In the past, the temptation to intervene in the energy markets has proven too great for the entire field of GOP candidates, proving that this is not an exclusively Democratic problem.  Going forward, the American people deserve a leader who recognizes the full measure of coal, oil, and natural gas resources under our feet, enacts policies that open our energy resources to create jobs and promote energy security, and refuses to feed the crony capitalists in the energy sector who crave taxpayer subsidies.” Pyle added.

“The American Energy Alliance will be watching tonight’s debate, and will gladly revoke a ‘Lump of Coal’ from any candidate who announces a clear agenda for affordable energy.”

The American Energy Alliance previewed last week the inaugural 2011 “Lump of Coal Awards” for energy stupidity, which will be announced December 8-23, 2011.  To learn more about coal’s important place in America’s energy future, click here.  To learn the facts about coal production in the United States, click here.

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For Immediate Release

WASHINGTON D.C. — The American Energy Alliance announced today the latest recipients of the 2011 inaugural “Lump of Coal” Awards, given Dec. 8-23 to policy makers, politicians and other professionals who are most responsible for reduced economic growth and rising energy prices.  Today’s award is shared by 1997 Nobel prize winner and current energy secretary, Steven Chu, and former senator and current interior secretary, Ken Salazar.

“Every time the American people think of Steven Chu, they will be thinking about Solyndra.  If not for his signature on the $535 million loan guarantee, American taxpayers would not have been on the hook for the now-bankrupt company whose backers were political allies of President Obama,” noted AEA President Tom Pyle in the award announcement.

“From the beginning, we have known that Secretary Chu favored higher energy prices, and the policies that would guarantee them.  We didn’t know, however, the degree to which Secretary Chu was playing venture capitalist with taxpayer dollars.  Now, three years into the Obama administration, we know the facts about Secretary Chu’s ideological commitment to conceal the real cost of green energy from consumers while increasing the cost of otherwise affordable domestic energy sources.

“For his ivory tower fantasy of a carbon-less economy even when it means higher costs to American consumers — and for putting his John Hancock on one of the administration’s most objectionable examples of bureaucratic tinkering with energy policy — Secretary Chu is most deserving of this year’s Lump of Coal.”

Sharing today’s award with Secretary Chu is his Obama cabinet counterpart at the Department of Interior, Secretary Ken Salazar.

“Millions of acres of promising energy resources on the outer continental shelf are out of reach, inaccessible, andlocked up in regulatory shackles because of Ken Salazar,” Pyle added.

“Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in the Gulf coast economy because of Secretary Salazar’s moratorium and subsequent permitorium.  Millions of dollars in revenues for local businesses have dried up.  And job creators are actively moving their business to more friendly regulatory environments, all because of Salazar’s radical administrative activism.

“In fact, no administration in history has done more to ensure that energy producers do less.  Ken Salazar is one of the premier poster children for joblessness and a sluggish economic recovery over the last three years.  He is particularly worthy of a big, fat chunk of carbon-loaded Christmas coal.”

The American Energy Alliance previewed last week the inaugural 2011 “Lump of Coal Awards” for energy stupidity, which will be announced December 8-23, 2011.  To learn more about coal’s important place in America’s energy future, click here.  To learn the facts about coal production in the United States, click here.

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WASHINGTON D.C. — Sorting through the list of potential recipients for the inaugural “Lump of Coal” Award was a laborious process for the judges at the American Energy Alliance this year.  But undeterred in the quest to find America’s naughtiest politicians, policy makers, and other professionals who just don’t understand how energy markets work, the judges emerged from their frack-friendly conference room convinced that the second award this year should be shared between West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall and his Empire State colleague, Rep. Maurice Hinchey.

“Affordable American energy has suffered tremendous setbacks because of Nick Rahall and Maurice Hinchey.  Together, these two legislators worked under Speaker Nancy Pelosi to erect ridiculous bureaucratic barriers to domestic energy development.  They supported policies that lead to higher gas prices.  And they backed an agenda that has stifled economic recovery and job creation,” said AEA President Tom Pyle in the award announcement.

“During his inglorious chairmanship of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rahall pushed to limit the acreage of federal lands available for exploration and expand the bureaucratic red tape in the federal leasing process.  As Speaker Pelosi’s stooge on the natural resources committee, Rahall toed the San Francisco line to secure his chairmanship.  Now that he’s moved to the transportation committee, he’s embracing more sensible energy policies.  If the trend continues, he probably won ‘t be eligible for the ‘Lump of Coal’ award next year.  So we wanted to make sure he received one this year to memorialize his past failures.

“As for Hinchey, there is no greater enemy of domestic shale oil and gas exploration.  He wants to repeal important laws that have allowed for the economic boom in places like North Dakota, where unemployment is now at 3.5 percent (the lowest in the country).  He endlessly repeats false rhetoric about the fracturing technologies, which have been used safely in the United States without evidence of water contamination for more than 50 years.

“In the long history of famous couples, Mo and Nick are right up there with Turner and Hooch, Cagney and Lacey, Mutt and Jeff, Heckle and Jeckle, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  Today’s award for energy stupidity is rightly shared by these two clowns.”

Earlier this week, the American Energy Alliance previewed the inaugural 2011 “Lump of Coal Awards” for energy stupidity, which will be announced December 8-23, 2011.  To learn more about coal’s important place in America’s energy future, click here.  To learn the facts about coal production in the United States, click here.

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