Power The Future Virginia-Based Nonprofit That Uses Communications and Social Media To Attack What It Calls “The Radical Environmental Agenda”
Power The Future Is A Northern Virginia-Based Nonprofit
Power the Future is a 501(c)(4) Organization That Blames Clean Energy and Environmentalism For Job Losses. “We are a 501C4 with the mission of offering truth, facts, and research that will enrich the national conversation on energy. […] We carry out these beliefs by disseminating research, sharing facts and truths, engaging at the local level and interacting with the media. With so many loud voices in the energy conversation, ours will highlight truth, unmask agendas, expose hypocrisy and reduce hyperbole. […] We are the voice of energy workers advocating for their jobs and communities, and pushing back on the radical environmental movement which uses their vast power and resources to advance their agenda.” [Power the Future, accessed 11/21/19]
Power The Future Is Based In Arlington, Virginia, But Hopes To Advertise In 10 States. “The Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit’s advertising campaign is starting in New Mexico, but Turner said he wants to expand into 10 states by the end of the year, with specific targets including Oklahoma and Louisiana. For now, it’s a one-man shop, but Turner said he hopes to expand and hire staff this year.” [E&E, 03/05/19]
Power The Future Attacks Groups That It Sees As Threatening The Oil Industry
Power The Future Believes That “The Energy Space” Has Been “Villainized.” “A new energy advocacy organization is aiming to combat environmental groups and boost the energy industry. […] The focus of the group is on ‘telling the story of the men and women in the energy space … which has been villainized by the environmental left,’ Turner said.” [E&E, 03/05/19]
Power the Future Attacks Environmental Groups On Its Website. “We call attention to the misinformed activists who tarnish their names and point out the consequences on local communities that result when energy jobs are lost. We are the missing voice in the national conversation on energy, focusing on the big questions that will determine our energy future.” [Power the Future, accessed 11/04/19]
Power the Future Launched a Website to Blame Tom Steyer for the Death of Coal Towns. “Armed with industry propaganda, a dark money group has drawn a straight line from a liberal billionaire to the death of coal towns. The fact that such a link doesn’t exist hasn’t stopped nascent conservative nonprofit Power the Future from launching a website devoted to the claim that wealthy Democratic donor Tom Steyer has single handedly destroyed communities throughout the country by giving money to environmental groups like Sierra Club. With a wave to the Great Depression’s Hoovervilles, shantytowns for the unemployed, Power the Future named its propaganda site Steyerville.” [Big If True, 04/16/18]
Power The Future’s Western States Director Wrote an Op-Ed Pitting Energy Employees In New Mexico Against Clean Energy Policies. Larry Behrens, Power The Future’s Western States Director, writes that “[New Mexico’s energy] workers and families deserve much more than our gratitude. They deserve an ally who will fight for them and their way of life against radical environmentalists and their dangerous agenda.” [Santa Fe New Mexican, 05/04/19]
Daniel Turner Wrote An Opinion Piece Praising Trump For His Support of the Coal Industry. He wrote, “Supporting coal is not popular. But only someone as bold as President Trump could do what is right, popularity be damned. The Trump administration’s recent unveiling of the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule which grants each state autonomy to craft their own environmental requirements for coal-powered plants, has enraged the environmental left.” [Fox News, 06/21/19]
Power The Future Works Closely With the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA). There is “clear evidence that NMOGA is working directly with PTF based on a PowerPoint presentation leaked last year wherein NMOGA’s spokesperson Robert McEntyre presented alongside PTF’s Turner, with special guest, Vincent Harris…Harris and his company have deep ties to global-nationalist movements in Germany, Israel, and right here at home. One of Harris’ former employees helped organize the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 where on anti-fascist activist was murdered.” [ProgressNow New Mexico, 10/21/19]
Power The Future Works With The Same Public Relations Firm That That Had To Drop A No-Bid Contract With The EPA After Its Ties To A Controversial Group That Harassed EPA Staff
Power The Future’s Website Uses A Web Domain Registered By Defitecn Public Affairs. “In other examples, environmental causes have been attacked by astroturf websites, linked to Definers Public Affairs by common Google analytics codes. The They Cap You Pay website attacked proposed cap and trade (climate change-related) legislation in Oregon. Meanwhile, the Power the Future website – which again shares the same tracking code and was also registered using a Definers email address – claims that ‘We are the voice of energy workers pushing back on radical green groups and the ideologues who fund them.’” [Global Witness, 06/11/19]
Definers Public Affairs Had To Drop Its No-Bid EPA Contract After Its Ties To A Republican Group That Sought To Identify EPA Staff Critical Of Donald Trump. “A consulting firm has pulled out of a federal contract to provide media monitoring services to the Environmental Protection Agency after it was disclosed that a lawyer among its top executives had been investigating agency employees critical of the Trump administration. Joe Pounder, the president of Definers Public Affairs, said in a statement on Twitter that his company’s $120,000 contract with the E.P.A., which it was awarded this month, had become a ‘distraction.’ The contract came under scrutiny because of the company’s links to America Rising, a Virginia-based corporation and Republican political operation with several offshoots that have investigated E.P.A. officials. One lawyer on the company’s staff, Allan Blutstein, sent a series of Freedom of Information Act requests to the E.P.A. asking for email correspondence by employees who had been publicly critical of the Trump administration’s management of the agency. […] But agency employees — particularly those who had been targeted by America Rising after they raised questions about the management of Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. — said they were fearful the new contract might translate into increased surveillance of agency staff.” [New York Times, 12/19/17]
Power The Future’s Founder Is A Koch Brothers Insider
Daniel Turner Is A Republican Campaign Operative Who Has Worked For The Koch Institute
Daniel Turner, Who Founded Power The Future, Is A Republican Communications Staffer With Ties To The Koch Brothers. “Republican Communications Staffer.” “A new energy advocacy organization is aiming to combat environmental groups and boost the energy industry. Power the Future, created by former Republican communications staffer Daniel Turner, who has also worked for two organizations linked to the Koch family, appeared online last month with social media accounts and online advertising. Turner worked at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, on the 2012 Romney for President transition team and at other organizations including Booz Allen Hamilton, Generation Opportunity and the Charles Koch Institute. His uncle, Bob Turner, was a Republican congressman from New York between 2011 and 2013.” [E&E, 03/05/19]
Daniel Turner Was Says He Was The “Director Of Strategic Communications” For The Charles Koch Institute. Daniel Turner, on LinkedIn, says he was “Director of Strategic Communications” at the Charles Koch Institute from January 2015 until January 2017. [LinkedIn, accessed 11/04/19]
Daniel Turner Said He Raised “Several Million Dollars In Seed Money From Donors That “‘Care Deeply About The Energy Industry From A National Perspective.’” “Turner said he has raised several million dollars in seed money from donors that “care deeply about the energy industry from a national perspective, and they care about the activism of these well-organized, ridiculously well-funded groups and the damage they do to our national conversation.’ But he would not name specific donors for his new energy group and did not comment on whether the Kochs are backing Power the Future.” [E&E, 03/05/19]