We’re pleased to have as our guest Melissa Valliant, Director of Communications for Beyond Plastics, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending plastic polution. She grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and graduated from Syracuse University with a plan to pursue magazine journalism. Somewhere along the way, she became hooked on environmental conservation and discovered a love for leveraging her communications abilities to make the world a better place. Melissa had her first letter to the editor published in a kids' science magazine at the age of 11 and has since been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, among others. Prior to her role at Beyond Plastics, she managed communications for Oceana's plastics campaign and worked for the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Topics Discussed Include:

• How environmental and health problems are connected with micro plastic and nano plastic particles and why scientists are alarmed.
• Why only 9 percent of plastic waste recycled.
• How the plastics lobby/greenwashing industries that were against abatement and reform.
• How the Fossil Fuel believes they can make up for future oil market loss with plastics production.
• How plastic manufacturing is highly polluting, where in the country we produce it, and impacts on local communities.
• What is currently being done to reform and what ultimately needs to be done to start to fix the problem.

Further Reading / Topics Discussed in this Episode:

· Consider the positive and aspects of “The crying Indian” commercial on American society.

· How do prominent projects such as “Mr. Trash Wheel” encourage plastics removal/recycling versus reduction of plastics production affect public perception?

· Media Briefing on Polution in Port Arthur, TX

· Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act

· The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act

· Beyond Plastics Affiliates

· Beyond Plastics petitions

Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!

Doug founded Earth Track to more effectively integrate information on energy subsidies. For the past three decades, he has written extensively on natural resource subsidies for organizations such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Stockholm Environment Institute. He has analyzed scores of government programs and made important developments in subsidy valuation techniques. He has provided input on subsidy reform legislation, served as a peer reviewer on subsidy papers from all over the world, and has published his own work in major journals and as book chapters. In recent years, his work has focused on subsidies to fossil fuels, nuclear power, and the impact of multi-sector natural resource subsidies on biodiversity and critical habitats.

Working collaboratively with other organizations, Earth Track focuses on ways to more effectively align the incentives of key stakeholder groups and to leverage market forces to help address complex environmental challenges.

He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA in economics from Wesleyan University.

Topics Discussed Include:

• Government subsidies - why they are important to think about as we try to decarbonize our economy.
• How oil and gas subsides work in general and why they are outdated and harmful to climate goals.
• How taxpayers’ subsidies distort the market for oil and gas produced in Permian Basin.
• The role of different levels of government in supporting oil and gas and whether there are specific challenges trying to reform state-level policies.
• How some subsides were passed in the 1920s when oil extraction was a new industry and haven’t been changed to match the times.
• How three quarters of the subsides support exploration and production, potentially creating a disincentive to phasing out fossil fuel energy.
• How transparency of information on costs and how is paid is often lacking
• Particularly egregious subsidies in the federal realm, in Texas, and New Mexico.
• Examples of federal and state regulations and environmental exemptions that allow the fossil fuel production pollution to walk away from their production pollution and how that is affecting the Permian Basin’s environment for the people.

Further Reading:

· The High Cost Well subsidy

· The Good Jobs First organization

Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!

Matt Renner serves as Vice President of Seneca Environmental, a tribally owned and controlled Earth-healing solutions company focused on helping commercial customers achieve ambitious climate goals while supporting the long-term well-being of the Seneca Nation and other Indigenous people. His work focuses on partnership development and customer acquisition to create unprecedented collaboration and profitably accelerate climate action.

Matt has worked as a nonprofit executive in clean energy, climate policy, and journalism for over a decade, focusing on the near-term social and economic impacts of climate change. He was the head of Climate Mobilization and now serves on their board of directors. He began his career as an investigative reporter and later became the Executive Director of the World Business Academy to focus on the transition to a climate-constrained economic paradigm.

Matt has a BA degree in Political Science and Government from the University of California, Berkeley.

Topics Discussed Include:

· How Seneca Environmental is set up and its main goals.

· Why the Seneca Nation set up a specific section to invest in clean climate change solutions.

· How Seneca Environmental made the 2023 Time100 List and what Matt has done to make Seneca Environmental unique.

· An outline of the work Renner has done for the Native American community and for corporate businesses on producing clean energy.

· Why Seneca Environmental’s business model is working for both the Native American community and corporate businesses.

· How Seneca Environmental’s model and efforts can be replicated with other tribes and businesses to help the clean energy movement going forward.

Further Reading:

· The Seneca Environmental web site

· Video overview of the Seneca Nation

· Federal Tax Credits for Businesses

· Department of Energy Loan Programs

Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!