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American Solutions for Winning the Future

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This article is part of the Coal Issues portal on SourceWatch, a project of CoalSwarm and the Center for Media and Democracy.

This is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's climate change project.

American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) is a group which has launched a petition promoting expanding oil and gas exploration in the U.S. The group claims to be "non-partisan" and is headed by former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich.[1]

On its website, it states that the petition is to "petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices)* by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries".[2]

More recently, ASWF has been soliciting contributions for the purpose of derailing the Employee Free Choice Act which would allow company employees to form a union through a petition method in addition to the established method of an election through secret ballots.[3] The solicitations falsely imply that the "card" method supplants the secret ballots when it is an additional method.[citation needed]

Contents

Peabody Funding and Support for Coal

As of July 1, 2008, Peabody Energy was the fourth largest contributor to ASWF, donating $275,000.[4]

ASWF's “Platform Of The American People” includes support for increasing coal use in the United States:[5]

  • To combat the rising cost of energy and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, we support the United States using more of its own domestic energy resources, including the oil and coal it already has here in the U.S.
  • We believe the United States should increase its use of coal because it is a domestically available energy source, is less expensive than imported foreign oil, and new technologies have dramatically reduced emissions from burning coal, as well as making it much less harmful to the environment.
  • We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible.
  • We believe in using United States domestic energy sources such as clean coal and oil, even if it means drilling off our coasts and in Alaska, as well as offering tax credits for American businesses that develop new energy sources.

SourceWatch resources

External links

Sources

  1. "AboutAmericanSolutions", American Solutions website, accessed August 2008.
  2. "Fuel the movement: Sign the petition", American Solutions website, accessed August 2008.
  3. American Solutions for Winning the Future, "Freedom Not Fear", American Solutions for Winning the Future website, accessed March 2009.
  4. Brad Johnson, "Newt's American solutions Is a Front Group for King Coal," The Wonk Room, July 30, 2008
  5. Brad Johnson,"Newt's American solutions Is a Front Group for King Coal," The Wonk Room, July 30, 2008

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