For years , Big Oil has cozied up to American public schooling — and now they seem to be cashing in their chipping . New emails appear to show that some elect officials in charge of public schools may have been helped in attacking the Biden giving medication ’s late decision to hesitate crude oil and flatulence leasing on federal land by knock-down oil industriousness lobbying groups .
Theemails , obtained by the watchdog group Accountable.us as part of a public records request , are exchanges from late January of this year between Kirsten Baesler , the overseer of public school day in North Dakota , and two fellow member of the North Dakota Petroleum Council , an industriousness advocacy group in the state .
“ Ron wanted me to transport you some ND stats on oil impacts , ” the first email from Kristen Hamman , the director of regulatory and public affairs at the North Dakota Petroleum Council , reads , referencing Ron Ness , the group ’s president , who is also cc’ed . In the email , Hamman heel a series of statistic and employment numbers on the crude and accelerator pedal industry in North Dakota and Wyoming .
Photo: John Moore (Getty Images)
“ Thank you , Kristen ! ” Baesler respond to the statistics . “ This is very helpful . ”
A little over two weeks after that commutation , on Feb. 16 , Baesler joined four other state superintendents from Alaska , Utah , Montana , and Wyoming ( the former two are governor - appointed while the latter two are elected like North Dakota ’s ) inpenning a letterto the Biden administration . Their letter was in dissent of , curiously for five educators , the governing ’s conclusion to ban fogey fuel let on federal lands . The varsity letter described the five states as subject “ on gross from various tax , royalties , disbursements , and rental payments to fund our schools , residential area base , and public avail , ” and goes on to list statistic about fossil fuel money and education — using some of the same statistics and numbers pool sent to Baesler by the North Dakota Petroleum Council .
“ Thank you , this is fantastical , ” Ness emailed Baesler on Feb. 22 , with the school text of the superintendent letter pasted into the body of the email .
“ petroleum and natural gas executives lie with to talk about working with the Biden administration to cover mood change , but these written document show behind closed doors they are actively work to weaken that very effort , ” said Kyle Herrig , president of Accountable . US , in apress going .
An API spokespersondenied any involvementwith the land superintendents ’ letter to Salon , while Baesler told Salon the entropy in the letter come from a disjoined rootage and that she did not coordinate with diligence on the letter .
Big Oil has been diligently working for yr to penetrate the American education system and further climate denial — with nifty success . The Heartland Institute , a right - fender think tank whose work wassupported by the Koch blood brother ’ internet , mailedhundreds of thousands of copies of a bookcalled “ Why scientist Disagree About Global Warming ” to teachers across the country in 2017 full of climate self-abnegation talking points . Various oil - funded projects at the national and land levels have provide nightmarish tiddler ’ fabric to pedagog , include anoil - themed word searchand a book of account about “ Petro Pete , ” thestory of a guy who discovers“what life history would be like if we did n’t have petroleum . ” ( Spoiler : all his stuff is gone . )
It ’s gentle to laugh at Petro Pete , but this lobbying has real impact . The petrochemical industriousness , led by API , has beentargeting K-12 Department of Education since the forties , and the varsity letter from these superintendents ruminate how successful the effort to tangle education in oil ’s grasp has been . Free lesson plan , books , and other material and resources — regardless of their source — are probably a welcome accession to the schoolroom for cash - lather public school districts and overworked teachers . And many state have bond their educational system of rules almost entirely to revenue from fossil fuels , with some calamitous results . Wyoming , for example , is facing acavernous instruction budget shortfallas the coal industry has crash , while freefalling oil prices have impacted college pupil fromTexastoNew Mexico .
Fossil fuel interestingness know that the time is coming to pay the genus Piper . Part of a just modulation will be figuring out how to keep the industry from drag down state budgets and our ill fund education system with it .
BidenChemistryEducationFossil fuelPetroleumPhysical sciences
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