Former Congressman Tim Ryan Paid Nearly $250K to Shill for Fossil Fuels
Television network owes public disclosure of revolving door lawmaker conflicts
WASHINGTON – A newly public tax filing shows that former Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio was paid nearly $250,000 by Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, a front group formed by fracking and pipeline companies to promote production and exports of methane gas.
The payment, first reported by the investigative climate publication HEATED, was disclosed in Natural Allies’ annual form 990 for 2023. Reporters from Heated used public records to connect the payment of $246,943 to Wuzzy Enterprises LLC to Ryan’s home address in Ohio.
In an appearance on MSNBC Ryan claimed that fellow Democrats should have more enthusiastically embraced fracking during the presidential campaign to appeal to working class voters. “ We did not give them enough of, ‘We are reindustrializing, we are talking about American competitiveness. We are moderate on things like natural gas in Western Pennsylvania,’” he said according to HEATED.
In reality, a recent Public Citizen analysis found that ramping up exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries such as China could stick Pennsylvania consumers with a $16 billion bill. Gas price increases would harm households, small businesses and industrial manufacturing companies that Ryan claims to support.
“Tim Ryan is a paid spokesperson for Natural Allies, and is being paid to promote the industry’s message. Ryan’s appearance on MSNBC was nothing short of an unpaid ad for harmful gas drilling and exports that will raise prices for ordinary Americans, and is the latest iteration of deceptive public relations tactics used by the fossil fuel industry,” said Alan Zibel, a researcher for Public Citizen.
Natural Allies, a group funded by fracking firms and pipeline companies, has employed the services of key former Democratic lawmakers including Ryan, former Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to establish relationships with key Democratic constituencies as part of the group’s pro-polluter agenda, according to a recent report by the Revolving Door Project and Public Citizen.
While in Congress, Ryan co-sponsored several bills that aimed to expand US natural gas production, including unsuccessful legislation in 2015 and 2017 that would have expedited and repealed restrictions on U.S gas exports.
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