Deceptive statistics

With the issues of the Japanese nuclear reactors on everyones mind, while doing my research the other day, I began noticing a trend amongst the anti-nuclear crowd. They regularly were using the same sources for arguing against nuclear, the Institute for Energy Research, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, American Energy Alliance, and so on. The same points, multiple agencies, must be valid points it looked like. You'd find a IER study referencing numbers from AEA, and vice versa, all throughout these articles.

But then I noticed one of them referenced the Cato Institute, and a big red flag went up. Cato is a front organization for Koch Industries. So, I began looking at the other agencies references, and the studies those groups were referencing. And what I discovered was, every single one of them is being financed by Koch Industries, or by one of the Koch brothers directly. Here is the list of the groups:

Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth

American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity

American Council for Capital Formation

American Energy Alliance

American Enterprise Institute

Americans for Prosperity

American Legislative Exchange Council

American Solutions for Winning the Future

Atlas Economic Research Foundation

Capital Research Center

The Cato Institute

Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

CO2isGreen

Coalition for Affordable American Energy

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Congress of Racial Equality

Energy Citizen

Fraser Institutes

FreedomWorks

Foundation for Research on Energy and Environment

Frontiers of Freedom

George C. Marshall Institute

The Heartland Institute

The Heritage Foundation

Independent Women's Forum

Institute for Energy Research

Mackina Center for Public Policy

The Manhattan Institute

National Black Chamber of Commerce

National Center for Policy Analysis

National Center for Public Policy Research

Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy

Property and Environment Research Center

The Reason Foundation

The Tax Foundation

Texas Public Policy Foundation

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Washington Legal Foundation

Young America's Foundation

These groups are spreading half truths, deceptions, and lies. But understanding why takes a bit more work. All of these groups are coming out against nuclear, but they are doing so by setting the green energy guys against it. This will force the nuclear lobby to fight against green energy. Both sides loose, and who is left? King Coal and Prince Oil, with their prime benefactors, Koch Industries, who runs coal mines, runs coal power plants,, runs oil rigs, oil refineries, and oil power plants and has fought to have any kind of fossil fuel restrictions loosened for decades, under a variety of subsidies such as Koch Minerals, Koch Carbon, C Russ Coal, and the Oxbow Group.

And I am watching people, again and again, being mislead by these groups, who work by inter-linking their information, to mislead the public through such actions and, shall we say, misleading statistics.