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Energy Makes America Great!
The general public has a universal lack of comprehension of energy. All the average person knows about energy is how to turn on the lights and put gas in their cars. This makes it easy for the many groups who are actively workin--many with million dollar budgets--to pass their anti-energy agenda on to the public. They use attractive campaigns with messages that sound like we should all agree with them--after all who doesn’t like polar bears? The truth of their mission is deeply hidden. But if they had their way, we’d all be living in dark caves and our presence would still pollute the environment.
Because of this general misunderstanding and misinformation CARE was founded in 2005 through cooperative efforts of a group of oil and gas producers in New Mexico who were tired of being beaten up by the media, and of misinformation planted there. Their goal was proactive communication of the positive side of the energy industry to the media and the public.
CARE is unique in that we work with all “responsible” energy sources--as our website reflects. However, since 90% of America’s energy comes from hydrocarbons, the mediums being most heavily attacked, most of CARE’s energy advocacy goes to petroleum products.
CARE’s platform is the general statement: Energy Makes America Great! We have distributed thousands of bumper stickers that plainly state the pro-energy message. Imagine the subtle impact if these “Energy Makes America Great” stickers started showing up all over America. Many companies have requested enough stickers for all of the vehicles in their fleets. The bumper stickers are one of our passive efforts to educate the public on the positive role energy plays in their lives.
Public education is a great goal, but is not easily achieved. In the last several years, CARE has engaged in both traditional and innovative activities to get the pro-energy message to the public.
The creation and publication of a variety of opinion editorials has been one of CARE’s most frequent successes with an average of two released per month. Op-eds have been published by newspapers throughout New Mexico, where CARE is based, and in other states. Slightly longer, more complete versions have been published through online commentary sites world-wide. A complete listing is available in the “newsroom” section of CARE’s website.
In the spring of 2007, CARE hosted our first statewide speech competition for college students throughout New Mexico. Students gave a 20 minute speech showing it is possible to both embrace the earth and energy. Six students won a $1000 scholarship for the regional round and one student received the $5000 Halliburton Embrace scholarship. These students have been giving their presentations throughout New Mexico for groups in need of speakers with the goal of adding positive energy messages to the public dialogue. The 2009 Competition is in process at this time.
Though CARE is not political and does no lobbying, beginning in February 2008, we’ve had initial success in building a grassroots coalition which has offered public comment in a variety of hearings and legislative sessions. Prior to this effort, only the anti-energy contingent had been present.
Throughout the last year, CARE has shown important movies throughout New Mexico—accompanied by an expert to answer questions from the audience and update the movies’ message. In May 2008, CARE showed Mine Your Own Business in three cities. In August, the Great Global Warming Swindle was presented in four cities. Hundreds of people attended these events and they garnered media attention.
In January 2009, CARE had another public event in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. James Taylor of the Heartland Institute gave a presentation on the Economic Impacts of Climate Change Policy.
Following the Administration’s decision not to continue plans for Yucca Mountain, CARE is working in partnership with the Rio Grande Foundation to organize a town-hall style meeting addressing nuclear power, uranium mining and enrichment, and waste storage (expected to take place in July or August 2008).
This past Fall, CARE sponsored a statewide poll to determine opinions of New Mexico’s citizens regarding American energy development. (A full report is available on CARE’s website in the “Newsroom.”) Many newspapers published op-eds on the survey or wrote original articles addressing the poll. In addition to the media coverage CARE’s energy message received, the information is helping to shape future plans.
In the Fall of 2008, CARE organized and paid for advertising about an interactive radio program addressing the topics of concern to the local citizens in Grants, New Mexico. The eight-week program featured noted experts who answered specific questions regarding the proposed reopening of uranium mining. Each program is available on the CARE website in the audio center and can be heard online or downloaded for listening later.
While most efforts focus on the public, one of CARE’s newer projects is for those within the industry. In August, CARE began offering once-a-month conference calls featuring a half-hour with a noted industry expert. People can call in and participate at no cost from anywhere. Previous Conference Calls are available for listening in the audio center on the CARE website.
CARE’s newest effort is YouTube videos. Because we are not an industry group, CARE can be more aggressive in attacking the issues as we are not doing lobbying or working directly with the government officials. There are currently four short videos from CARE.
Then, of course, there is the e-newsletter. In the last two years, CARE’s newsletter distribution has gone from approximately 200 people to nearly 5000 with an average open rate of 25-30%.
Additionally, CARE maintains a blog that features up-to-date energy news and opinion from today’s thought leaders.
From the unique position as multi-disciplinary regional and national energy advocates, with your support, CARE will continue--ever more vigilant--to do our part to encourage affordable, abundant, and available energy!
Leadership
Marita Noon
Executive Director
Marita Noon provides a powerful voice for America’s energy situation. She has served as Executive Director for CARE—which stands for Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy—since January 2007. This role has allowed her to focus almost entirely on energy—oil, gas, nuclear, coal, wind and solar. Since wind and solar are the darlings of the energy world, Marita has moved CARE toward specifically advocating for oil, gas, nuclear and coal and has pushed CARE onto a national platform. Since joining CARE, Marita has come to see that everything we hold dear in America is under attack and energy is at the center of the battle. Coming from a background in speaking and writing, Marita effectively uses her skills to share the complete energy picture with audiences through both the spoken and written word. She has had articles and op-eds published in newspapers throughout New Mexico—where CARE is based—and nationally in industry publications and internet commentary sites. More than one thousand people read CARE’s electronic newsletter which is sent out each month.
Marita would like to hear from you! What ideas do
you have for the future of CARE? How can CARE
better serve you? With whom can you connect
Marita who should be involved with CARE—as a donor
or as an expert for the energy counsel? Please
contact Marita via e-mail at:
marita@responsiblenergy.org.
James K. Chilton, Jr.
Board Director
Jim Chilton is a 5th generation Arizona cattle rancher whose pioneering ancestors settled in the state in the late 1800's. He and his wife Sue make their home on the family cow-calf ranch south of Arivaca, Arizona. Jim is a representative of the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association to the national Public Lands Council where he participates in the development of policy recommendations for Congress and federal agencies relating to livestock grazing issues.
Jim also owns an investment banking and financial advisory services company. As lead banker, Jim has completed billions of dollars of tax-exempt public purpose bonds to finance public infrastructure.
Jim earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics, a Master of Science in Economics, and a Master of Arts in Political Science from Arizona State University.
Mike Hightower
Board Director
Mike Hightower is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Energy Security Center at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is a civil and environmental engineer and has over 25 years experience in and research and development projects. This includes structural and geomechanics research in support of space and weapons systems, research and evaluation of innovative environmental technologies for industrial and nuclear waste treatment and cleanup, and security and protection of critical infrastructures. Currently, he supports research and development projects addressing water and energy resource sustainability and water and energy infrastructure security and protection issues and concerns. These efforts include developing novel water treatment and water monitoring technologies, developing models and techniques to improve water resource use and management, desalination and produced water treatment, impact of water availability on energy security and reliability, and water, electric power, and natural gas infrastructure security and protection.
Mike holds Bachelor and Master Degrees in Civil Engineering from New Mexico State University.
Gavin Longmuir
Board Director
Gavin Longmuir is a consulting petroleum engineer based in Stanley, NM, with over 25 years experience in the oil & gas industry. Since establishing his consultancy about 10 years ago, he has done projects for large and small companies, from Alaska to the Middle East. Gavin has also worked closely with attorneys for oil companies preparing for contract disputes and regulatory issues. His prior experience was in technical, commercial, & management functions with major oil companies in the North Sea, North Africa, California and Alaska.
Within the span of his working life, Dr. Longmuir has participated in the development of new oil fields, which briefly became giant energy suppliers, and then inevitably declined. As someone with direct experience of how challenging it is for the oil & natural gas industry simply to keep up with growing demand, he became interested in the future of human energy supplies. He has presented his views to a variety of audiences in New Mexico & beyond, including as keynote speaker at the 2004 North American Prospect Exposition in Houston. A paper based on his presentation has been published in “Oil, Gas & Environmental Law”. Gavin believes strongly that we all need to take the question of our future energy supplies more seriously. He’s committed to explaining to the public that global energy demand will have to grow to improve the lives of people around the world, especially in developing countries. Meeting that demand will be a major technical & commercial challenge, and will take decades of focused activities.
Gavin Longmuir earned BSc (First Class Honours) and PhD degrees at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, and an MBA at the University of New Mexico. He benefits tremendously from the company of his wife and two cats.
Thomas R. Morgan, PhD
Board Director
Director of Applied Geoscience, Z-Seis Corporation
Dr. Morgan joined Z-Seis in February 2008. He is responsible for interpretation of client project data and development of new software applications. This includes seismic data acquisition design and field supervision, processing QC, interpretation, software evaluation and purchase, hardware platform configuration and purchase, and development of internal applications. Formerly, Dr. Morgan was an Assistant Professor of Geophysics at Colorado School of Mines, a Senior Scientist in IBM’s supercomputing division, and most recently conducted software development for the upgrade project of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array in Socorro, NM.
During his career Dr. Morgan has had assignments in nearly every major segment of the oil and gas exploration industry including prospect generation, seismic data acquisition and processing, applied research and software development, as well as education and training. He is also an expert in numerical image reconstruction and the use of large scale cluster computing. He has authored numerous technical papers, reports and presentations as well as a graduate level text on wave theory and seismic imaging.
Paul Gessing
Board Director
President, Rio Grande Foundation
Paul Gessing became the first full-time President of the Rio Grande Foundation in March of 2006. Since joining the Foundation, Gessing has been a prominent voice for limited government and individual liberties in policy areas including: taxes, health care, education, and transportation.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Gessing headed up the lobbying efforts of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) a respected taxpayer-advocacy organization in Washington, DC.
Paul graduated from Bowling Green State University in Ohio with a degree in Political Science in 1997 and he received his Masters in Business Administration from the University of Maryland in 2005. Paul is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, but he has several family members in New Mexico and has spent a great deal of time in the state over the years.
Paul and his wife Krista were married in October 2007 in Algodones, NM. In his spare time, Paul enjoys playing basketball, golf, playing with the family dogs, and traveling.
Our IRS Form 990:
CARE Form 990 2006
CARE Form 990 2005
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