Last week, Greenpeace posted a comparison of Romneys new War on Coal TV ads with coal industry advertising.Our analysisshows that Romneys ads mirror four decades of coal industry advertising.
It turns out that the coal industry is not only providing Romney with talking points for his TV ads, but also with human props. The Romney War on Coal TV ad features the candidate speaking in front of a crowd of coal miners. Murray Energy Company forced these miners to miss a day of work without pay, and told them thatattendance was mandatoryat the Romney event. On Tuesday,Progress Ohio filedan FEC complaint over the use of coal miners in the Romney TV ad. “Clearly the [Romney] campaign should have thought better of exploiting the forced support of these workers, said Brian Rothenberg, Executive Director of ProgressOhio.
The TV ad is running in coal states, including Ohio and West Virginia. In the ad, Romney declares we have 250 years of coal! Why wouldnt we use it? Greenpeace analysis revealed that this estimate isfrequently usedincoal advertising, even though the National Academy of Sciencesshowsit to be vastly overestimated.
