[Editor note: For an in-depth look at Enron’s political capitalism model applied to the climate-change debate, see Bradley’s Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy (M & M Scrivener Press, 2009)] 

On four occasions,  Joseph Romm at Climate Progress (Center for American Progress) has deployed an argument ad hominem against me, using my prior employment at Enron and my direct association with Ken Lay (see here, here,  here, and here). My response to Romm earlier this week has received thousands of views and several blog links, including here.

The irony here is two-fold. First, Romm ignores the fact that I was an employee who personally challenged the company’s rent-seeking via climate alarmism. Secondly, and more ironic still, Enron was his darling company. Specifically, he was an unpaid consultant and collaborator with Enron Energy Services (EES), whose contracts were money losers, reflecting of paucity of economic energy savings.…

[Editor note: Also see “Joseph Romm and Enron: More for the Record” (May 8, 2009) and “Enron and Waxman-Markey: Response to Joe Romm” (July 2, 2009)]

The headline at Climate Progress, the blog site of Joseph Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, read:

MYSTERIOUS INDUSTRY FRONT-GROUP AFFILIATED WITH KEN LAY’S FORMER SPEECHWRITER LAUNCHES ANTI-WAXMAN-MARKEY ADS WITH PHONY MIT COST FIGURE

And here is what Romm specifically says about me:

Who is the [American Energy Alliance]?  Good question.  The AEA says on its website:

“AEA is an independent affiliate of the Institute for Energy Research (IER)….”Aside from the cryptic nature of the oxymoronic phrase “independent affiliate,” it is worth noting that the Institute for Energy Research “has received $307,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.”

“Politicians seem to be struggling to deliver on voters’ affordability concerns about housing, health care and more, but natural gas is doing just fine…. No single politician can take credit for this. Maybe that’s why it has worked.”

The editorial board of the Washington Post last month gave a shout out to natural gas. Kudos to the Post for magnifying the obvious.

“Natural gas remains affordable. Here’s how” (September 22, 2026), subtitled “It wasn’t a genius plan by the government,” began:

As the Iran conflict continues to roil energy markets, sending crude oil and gasoline prices higher, there’s one bright spot for American customers: natural gas. For that, they can thank American innovation and free markets.

Continuing:

The reason for the lower prices is not less demand; in fact, demand is expected to continue its years-long rise.

“Overall, Democrats have softened some of the rhetoric they think may have alienated voters in the Biden years — on climate and gender issues in particular….” – David Wallace-Wells, New York Times (October 14, 2026)

It’s election season. A major issue is high energy prices. “Climate change” is way down the concern list, knowing that climate mitigation (anti-fossil-fuel) policies increase prices. Thus, the green hushing continues.

Climate messaging is a mess–and in a funk (see Appendix below). The leading critic of green hushing, Joe Romm, committed suicide to escape the issue. “The problem is not denial nor this strawman description of ‘climate messaging’ that no one I know actually does— and I’ve been doing this for three decades,” he complained.

The problems are 1) the biggest disinformation campaign in human history, 2) which is amplified by every major social media site and 3) which combined outspend the money disseminating any of the climate messaging by 20x to 100x.