Let’s see, Al Gore just won an Academy Award, he’s up for a Nobel Peace Prize, and he’s sought after as a possible presidential candidate, so I suppose it stands to reason that the right started feeling antsy. Naturally, this led the predictable smear machine to kick into gear.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which hardly anyone had ever heard of before this week, released a “report<\/a>” to the media claiming that Gore’s home in Tennessee “consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES)…. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh — more than 20 times the national average.”<\/p>\n The idea, obviously, is to paint Gore as a hypocrite — he doesn’t practice what he preaches, if he really cared about conservation he’d have a more efficient home, etc. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research’s piece quickly landed in the inboxes of leading conservatives, Drudge trumpeted it all day, and far-right blogs pounced<\/a>. The story went mainstream<\/a> by mid-afternoon.<\/p>\n There are two key angles to the story — the substance of the claim, and the group making it. Let’s take these one at a time. ThinkProgress spoke<\/a> to Gore’s office directly about the former VP’s home.<\/p>\n 1) Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch<\/a>, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology. <\/p>\n 2) Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint — a concept the right-wing fails to understand. Gore’s office explains: “What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint<\/a> and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, Gore is doing exactly what he should do, and is leading by example. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research neglected to mention these details.<\/p>\n Which segues nicely into scrutinizing the accuser. Tennessee Center’s President Drew Johnson comes straight out of the right’s network, coming from Exxon-funded American Enterprise Institute<\/a> and the right-wing-funded National Taxpayers Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n They are part of the right’s State Policy Network. According to PFAW<\/a>:<\/p>\n “SPN is a national network of state-based right-wing organizations in 37 states as well as prominent nationwide right-wing organizations. Through its network SPN advances the public policy ideas of the expansive right-wing political movement on the state and local level.”<\/p>\n
\n
\nDave Johnson offers some helpful details<\/a>.<\/p>\n