DC Based Energy Group Launches $110,000 Ad Campaign Supporting Murkowski

Today, a Washington D.C. based group called Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES) launched a statewide radio ad buy in Alaska to recognize Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) for her leadership to support clean energy solutions in the U.S. Senate. According to a press release from the group, this is the first of two planned radio ad buys in Alaska that will total $110,000.

“Senator Lisa Murkowski deserves to be recognized for her work as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, where she has advanced renewable energy reform and placed the economic needs of Alaskans before partisanship,” said CRES Chairman and Executive Director James Dozier. “CRES is committed to ensuring that elected leaders focused on supporting clean energy policies that grow the economy, strengthen our national security, and preserve our environment for future generations are able to come back to Congress to continue their record of leadership.”

Here is CRES’ first ad going up in Alaska:

In a press release issued this morning, CRES listed the following among Murkowski’s accomplishments on renewable energy issues:

* Senator Murkowski serves as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee and has introduced 17 bills to modernize renewable energy development.

* Senator Murkowski voted to acknowledge that climate change is occurring in one of the first votes after assuming the Senate majority. * Senator Murkowski introduced the bipartisan Energy Policy Modernization Act, which was overwhelmingly approved in April as the first major energy bill to pass the Senate in almost a decade and authorizes $500 million to support research and development into cleaner forms of energy.

* Senator Murkowski led on the formation of the Senate Energy and Environmental Working Group to pursue commonsense and market-based energy reforms that bolster the economy, achieve cleaner energy production, and protect the environment.

CRES describes itself as promoting renewable energy policies based on conservative values. In January of 2015, the group’s President James Dozier told The Huffington Post “CRES was founded with a commitment to conservative, free-market solutions to America’s energy challenges and we will continue to advance that mission.”

But in the same story The Huffington Post criticized CRES as a liberal front group:

“The group calls itself conservative, but its support for greater federal funding of alternative energy drew the attention of Tennessee tea party groups, who decried what they saw as its liberal agenda.”

“Tea party activists were further agitated by the scant information available about Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. It pushed for increased public and private investment in alternative energy. It ran an issue ad praising Alexander’s “bold” energy plan in 2013. But whose money was funding that message?”

“If the tea party groups had known the full story, they might have gone ballistic.”

A Huffington Post examination of tax records, accessed on CitizenAudit.org, found that in its first year of operations, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions was funded with $1 million in seed money from two nonprofits often linked to liberal causes. From June 2012 through June 2013, the group received $500,000 each from the Advocacy Fund and the Trust for Energy Innovation.”

Given the size of the ad buy placed in Alaska by CRES, you can expect to see some attack on the group along these lines by Murkowski’s Libertarian/Tea Party opponent Joe Miller.