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Cooler Heads Coalition

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The Cooler Heads Coalition was a project of the National Consumer Coalition, itself a project of the 501(c)3 charitable nonprofit organization Consumer Alert.. The Cooler Heads Coalition claimed, until its closure in 2006, that "the science of global warming is uncertain, but the negative impacts of global warming policies on consumers are all too real.".

The Cooler Heads Coalition was criticized for ties to energy industries that would be affected if the United States enacted any legislation targeted at reducing CO2 emissions.. The Coalition was widely accused of astroturfing,, for example, writing for The American Prospect, Nicholas Confessore described the Coalition as "an Astroturf group funded by industries opposed to regulation of CO2 emissions." . Updates to the Cooler Heads Coalition's website were done by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, however, the site went offline in June, 2006. Other aspects of the site had been out of date longer: the "news" had not been updated since 2005.

Members of the National Consumer Coalition included:

  • Fund for a New Generation
  • Women for Tax Reform

Consumer Alert and National Consumer Coalition

Consumer Alert was founded in 1977, and later established the National Consumer Coalition.

Consumer Alert described itself as "a national, non-profit organization for people concerned about excessive growth of government regulation at the national and state levels. We are dedicated to informing the public about the consumer benefits of competitive enterprise and promoting the utilization of sound economic, scientific, and risk data in public policy decisions."

Staff members of Consumer Alert included, at various times, Frances Smith (executive director from 1994-2005), James Plummer (policy analyst), and Rich Zipperer (policy analyst).

Consumer Alert may have ceased operations. It's website, www.consumeralert.org, and three other websites operated by the organization (as cited in Consumer Alert's 2004 tax return), including the website of the Cooler Heads Coalition, are no longer online. Consumer Alert's 2004 tax return, the last one publicly available, cites its address as "in care of" the Washington DC law firm Collier Shannon Scott (since merged into Kelley, Drye & Warren, LLP).

The National Consumer Coalition was formed by Consumer Alert on February 4, 1997; it conducted research and educational activities on a variety of issues, including housing, transportation, food, health and safety, the environment, utilities, tax policy, financial issues, and telecommunications. A major issue of the National Consumer Coalition in the late 1990s was opposition to a federal mandate that airbags be installed in automobiles sold in the United States. The NCC argued that manufacturers should be allowed to install switches in automibiles so consumers can turn the airbags off. Once this permission was obtained, the NCC sought to persuade automakers to install the switches.

In 2001, the National Consumer Coalition launched the website www.NCCprivacy.org, saying it would cover four issue areas: online privacy, medical privacy, financial privacy and government surveillance. The website is no longer online.

In 2004, the National Consumer Coalition joined with the Free Congress Foundation to ask Congress not to eliminate "sunset" provisions calling for the expiry of regulations in the Patriot Act that Consumer Alert's James Plummer called "violations of consumer privacy."

The founding principles of the National Consumer Coalition can be gleaned from the principles endorsed by its members in a founding proclamation:

"The members of the National Consumer Coalition (NCC) do hereby endorse the following principles for a society of free and responsible consumers:

  • A market economy benefits consumers by expanding consumer choice and competition and fostering innovation, which lowers costs and improves consumer health and safety.
  • Individual consumers have different values and varying needs in the marketplace and shop for goods and services based on those, such as quality level, price, service, and convenience.
  • Informed consumers are better off making their own decisions in the marketplace and holding responsibility for those decisions.
  • Consumers exert clout in the marketplace by their decisions to buy or not to buy and to choose where to spend their money.
  • Government policies that restrict consumer choice and stifle competition harm consumers by substituting policymakers' values for individual values and raising the costs of goods and services to consumers."

The NCC's Cooler Heads Coalition project, launched in May 1997, was "an alliance of some two dozen non-profit public policy groups concerned about the implications of the Kyoto Protocol for consumers." . It was an educational association that did not engage in lobbying for or against legislation. It generally was associated with skepticism about the significance of the role of human activity in global warming.

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