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National Oilheat Research Alliance: Congressionally Sanctioned Lobbying and Disinformation [1]

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Date: 2023-02-13  

The National Oilheat Research Alliance (NORA) getting caught lying in the Washington Post about heat pumps in Maine raises the question of whether this Congressionally-sanctioned body established to research and improve oil heat should still exist, given its track record of spending the public's money on disinformation to lobby for public support for oil heat, instead.

Is there really a valid purpose for its activities, like its full-page ad in the Maryland Realtor magazine which calls heating oil "super-efficient" and "ultra-low sulfur," evoking "super-efficient" "clean coal" and "ultra-low-tar cigarettes"? Perhaps these activities serve to quiet some fears, as NORA was emphatic that "heating oil does not and cannot explode." This ad was co-sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Petroleum Distributors Association as part of the Partnership for Realty and Oilheat Success, an effort to help realtors overcome buyers' objections to oil-heated homes , something NORA also does in South Carolina .

When revived in 2014 , NORA was given strict guidance to spend at least a third of its money on research and development (up from 5.8%) and no more than a third of its money on consumer education (which was nearly 64% of its spending between 2001 and 2008, per the GAO). It's 2022 and 2023 budgets show that the trade association is following the letter of the law exactly, spending precisely the same amount on each, maxing out its marketing spending and putting the bare minimum into research so that both figures are exactly the same: $1,859,697.02 for each in 2022 and $1,803,096.11 for each in 2023. NORA is doing exactly as much marketing and as little research as it legally can, down to the last 2 cents.

But NORA spent its research budget on products that it used to lobby against electrification and heat pumps. For example, in New Jersey, where the trade association lobbies for biofuels, NORA claimed that heat pumps "fall short" of being able to heat homes comfortably in its response to NJ's 2019 Energy Master Plan .

A 2010 statement from a democratic senator on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee summarized a GAO report on NORA and the Propane Education and Research Council (PERC ), saying that "the programs have taken liberties in defining ‘consumer education,’ which in [GAO's] view includes activities that most of us would call lobbying."

The GAO staff testimony explained that NORA spent its money mostly on "consumer education," did far less on training or research, and definitely lobbied. But, to paraphrase, since Congress didn't spell out exactly what "no lobbying" meant, who's to say?

Well, NORA's longtime former president John Huber is described in HVAC industry press as " the lead lobbyist " responsible for NORA's creation, and prior to and during his 18 non-consecutive years of being president of the National Oilheat Research Alliance, his LinkedIn also lists that he was the Chief Lobbyist for the National Association for Oilheat Research and Education. And prior to that, he spent 12 years as a VP and lobbyist for the Petroleum Marketers Association of America. Furthermore, the first job he lists on LinkedIn, from all the way back in 1985, is"Special Assistant to the President" of the Transportation Institute, a position in which Huber "lobbied on behalf of [the] maritime industry."

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/13/2152683/-National-Oilheat-Research-Alliance-Congressionally-Sanctioned-Lobbying-and-Disinformation

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