When I was in high school I remember two formative teachers- we’ll call them Mrs. K and Mr. N. Mrs. K. taught speech and she taught it like she loved it and like she truly believed that each of us could be impactful, effective speakers. And she was good at it. Mr. N. taught literature like he was on fire. He was good at it. From the two of them I learned and cultivated a love for the power of words. They were also children of the 60’s who had chosen ideals and people over money, and they taught things from that perspective- it’s important to believe in something and to be able to articulate that argument, and it is important to create and appreciate beauty.

I came from that place and from people like that. I’m not a purist- I understand that the world does not operate the way teachers from 60’s liberal arts universities would like to imagine it could. But if my experience of those two formative teachers as a teenager is one side of the spectrum, lobbying in Washington D.C. is the other side. Want proof? The New York Times had a post in Green Inc. yesterday about Deryck Spooner, a grassroots organizing big dog who has run major campaigns for the Nature Conservancy, the AFL-CIO labor group, and NARAL, and abortion rights group.

What’s that? A talented, connected and proven grassroots organizer for environmental, labor and reproductive rights? Must be a bleeding-heart liberal, right?

Wrong.

He just got hired by the oil industry's biggest trade group: the American Petroleum Institute.

Is it because Spooner knows something wonderful about petroleum that we all just don’t understand? No, it’s because API has a whole lot of wonderful money FROM petroleum that we just can’t understand…

Like I said earlier- I get it. The guys is a well-paid lobbyist- that’s his job. He got paid by the liberal groups too. I just think it’s worth pointing out to everyone who does not live in Washington that the guy who led the Nature Conservancy’s push for climate change legislation will now lead the grassroots organizing wing of the American Petroleum Institute.

The move comes two months after the trade group cut 15 percent of its staff and said API had "not been as effective as we could be in educating public officials or the public about the critical role of oil and gas in our economy. ... You will see us evolve into a more nimble, more aggressive" organization. "We're going to be aggressive in our outreach to educate the public," said API President Jack Gerard in December.

"Jack's vision is to mobilize the 9.2 million people whose jobs rely on the oil and gas industry. We do plan to step that up," said API spokeswoman Cathy Landry.

And the best part is that Spooner fully admits that he is all about advocacy itself, not the causes he works for. Green Inc. wrote that Spooner “doesn't see the move from Nature Conservancy to API as that big of a jump.”

"I have worked for vastly different organizations throughout my career," Spooner said. "The bottom line is it's all about advocacy, that's what I'm passionate about. Mobilizing and organizing people to influence the public process and public policy is what I truly love to do. At the end of the day, I don't necessarily believe that the views of [the Nature Conservancy] and API are incompatible. [API members use technology] "to ensure that the places that they drill are not impacted. [API members] "don't just want to drill anywhere for drilling's sake. There's a lot of science going into where they drill," said Spooner.

 Photo Credit: alles-schlumpf (via Flickr under CCL)