McAuliffe's 'Green' Billionaire Backer Enriched Himself with Coal, Oil

Breitbart ^ | 09/22/2013 | Kerry Pickett

[TexGrill]

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe said in 2009 he "never want[s] another coal plant built,” but in the meantime, he hasn't been above taking money gained through coal investment for his campaign. Tom Steyer, a California-based financier and one of McAuliffe’s wealthiest out-of-state supporters, told his advisers in August to launch climate change television ads via his group, NextGen Climate Action Committee, in Virginia to help turn out the vote for McAuliffe, Politico reported in August.

Steyer (pictured, left) said, “I would say there’s a very clear choice on this topic between these two candidates, and I think the citizens of Virginia deserve to understand both what the truth is and what the implications of that are.” The billionaire hedge fund executive who founded Farallon Capital Management in 1986 and left the company 2012 thinks of himself as an environmentalist. His track record, however, shows a different story.

In 2008, Farallon heavily invested in Adaro, Indonesia’s second-largest coal company. Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter of thermal coal and, according to Reuters, China is Adaro’s biggest customer. In 2010, Calwatchdog points out, Steyer also did not support California's proposition 23. Rejected by California voters in November of 2010, prop 23 asked for the repeal of a law, signed by Governor Shwarzenegger in 2006, which aimed at rolling back California's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

[TexGrill]

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