thanks to nailmaker’s dkos diary we find a couple of updates to the al gore electric bill story. david roberts at huffpo tells us:
the tennessee tax dept. does not consider the “tennessee center for policy research,” which roughly no one had heard of before this, a legitimate group. it’s run by a long-time right-wing attack hack, and its only registered address is a p.o. box. why is everyone in the media taking what it says about gore’s electricity use at face value?
gore’s electricity company has no record of being contacted about his bills.
– – more after the jump – –
the “average” home electricity use quoted by tcpr is a national average that includes apartments and mobile homes. in gore’s climatic zone, the east south central (dept. of energy pdf), the average is much higher, thanks to hot, humid summers and cold winters. within that zone, gore’s usage is three (not 20) times average, and his per-square-foot usage is squarely average. (more here.)
the gores are not an average family. he’s an ex-vp with special security arrangements, and has live-in security staff. he and his wife both work on their many business and charitable undertakings out of their house, so they have space for offices and office staff. all that would be tough to cram in an average size house.
gore buys the maximum allowable green electricity from the program offered by his utility.
most of the electricity in tn comes from hydro and nuclear, and so doesn’t generate all that much co2 anyway.
as david says, feel free to use these talking points when writing the multi-millionaire media to refute this ridiculous story.
