Afterย Kenneth Boneย asked a question about energy to presidentialย nominees Donald Trump andย Secretary Hillary Clinton at the presidential town hall debate on October 9, he quickly became a viral internet sensation.
That evening at Washington University in St. Louis, Bone asked, โWhat step will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plantย workers?โ
Trump responded by touting โclean coalโ and bashing what he described as President Barack Obama’s war on energy.ย Sec. Clinton responded by promoting hydraulic fracturing (โfrackingโ) for oil and gas as a โbridgeโ to renewable fuels while also citing climate change as a โserious problemโ and that sheย wants โto make sure we don’t leave peopleย behind.โ
Lost in the shuffle of the viral memes,ย internet jokes,ย and a Facebook fan page is a basic question: Who is Ken Bone and what does he do for aย living?ย
Boneย works for theย Prairieย State Energy Campus, which isย co-owned by a consortium of electric power companies andย locatedย about an hour southeast of St. Louisย inย Lively Grove, Illinois.ย Adam Siegel, who blogs at the site Get Smart Energy Now, first pointed to the lack of disclosure the day after theย debate.
Both a blog post promoting Prairie State employees’ community volunteer work and his personal Facebook page confirm that Bone works for Prairieย State.
According to the Chicago Tribune,ย Prairie Stateย opened in lateย 2012 and is one of the dirtiest U.S. power plants opened in the past quarter century. Previously, it was partially owned by coal giant Peabody Energy until it sold its fiveย percent stake in May.
โEach year, it will churn more than 13 million tons of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, an amount equivalent to adding 2 million cars to the nation’s highways,โ wrote the Chicago Tribune. โMost U.S. power plants emitting that much climate-change pollution date to the 1960s andย ’70s.โ
Prairie State has also been marred by cost overruns, with the plant racking up far higherย building costs than originally stated. These cost overruns have led to lawsuits filed against the company by townships such as Hermann, Missouri and Batavia, Illinois.
The company has attempted to dodge compliance with President Obama’s proposed Clean Power Plan, which would force coal-fired power plants to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of the Clean Air Act for carbon emissions. The company wrote a letter to the EPA in May 2015 expressing its concerns about the proposed rule and also is a petitioner in the energy industry and states’ lawsuit against the EPA, a case which will soon be decided upon by the U.S. Appeals Court for the District ofย Columbia.
Despite this track record, Bone told The Washington Post,ย โWeโre one of the most environmentally-friendly coal power plants in the world. Weโre very recentlyย built.โ
The case study of Bone and Prairie State Energy Campus, then, raises another question: How are those who ask questions in the audiences vetted to avoid potential non-disclosure of industry ties and conflicts ofย interest?
Lack ofย Disclosure
In introducing Bone, co-moderator Anderson Cooper of CNN did not disclose what he did for a profession, but that was standard procedure for all audience members who asked a question. In doing post-debate media interviews, Bone has said he works for a coal-fired power plant company, but media outlets apparently have not asked him about which company he worksย for.ย
The Gallup Organization teamed up with the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) to choose debate attendees from St. Louis-area residents. CPD isย the nonprofit organization founded by Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee leaders, but ahead of the debate,ย the Los Angeles Times reported that it remainedย โunclear how members of the audience will be selected to askย questions.โ
โThe Commission on Presidential Debates worked with Gallup, a research and polling company, to randomly select uncommitted registered voters from the area around St. Louis, where the debate is being held,โ reported the Times. โUncommitted voters include people who have not made up their minds, or are leaning toward one nominee but could still be persuaded to vote for theย other.โ
In aย videotaped interview with the Belleville News-Democrat, Bone said he was randomly selected to attend the debate by Gallup based on the randomized phone survey the organization conducted for undecided voters, saying he was surprised it did not turn out to be a โdog and pony showโ in terms of who gets to ask questions and what he or she gets toย ask.
He also went on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show the day after the debate, but the interview focused on his wardrobe, not what he does for a living. On his appearance onย Jimmy Kimmel Live, Bone did say he worked for the coal electricity industry and expressed worry about some of Clinton’s proposed energy policies, while also pointing to his fear of Donald Trump’s stances on bread-and-butter civil rights issues like gay marriage. He expressed similar sentiments to The Washington Post.
Bone told DeSmog he went to the debate onย his own volition and told The New York Times, โIโm just glad I was able to spark the energy debate a little bit. It was kind of gettingย overlooked.โ
โI got no funding of any kind. I work in coal and I care deeply about the environment,โ he told DeSmog. โNo one knew my question in advance except the moderators and myย wife.โ
Boneโs employer also said that he was there on his own, not as a representative for theย company.
โKen attended the event as an individual, and not on Prairie Stateโs behalf,โ Alyssa Harre, manager of public relations and government affairs for Prairie State, told DeSmog. โKen developed the question on hisย own.โ
While it doesnโt appear to be the case this time, in the past the coal industry hasย usedย what’s called third party technique, in which the industry deploys regular-seeming people to speak positively on itsย behalf.
For example, the industryย didย so during the 2012 election cycle whenย Murray Energyย had Ohio mine workers appear at a โmandatoryโย rally (without pay) forย Republican Party candidate Mittย Romney.
A senior CPD official said it relies on Gallup do a โprocess and screen, the details of which [the CPD] does not get intoย โ a similar process for which we’ve been using for many cyclesย โ to identify individuals that are noncommitted.โ The official also said identifyingย the line of work for the person who stands up and asks a question atย town hall debates is not something the CPD has everย done.
Memoranda ofย Understanding
Leaked Memoranda of Understanding from previous presidentialย debates offer some clues as to how questioners are selected. The Memoranda are the agreements designed by the two major party campaigns each election season which govern the format and rules of the debates. While typically not released to the public, they were leaked to the press in both 2004 and 2012.
Both documents describe a nearly identical selectionย process.
Gallup is first tasked with finding a โnationally demographically representative group of votersโ using a methodology which must be approved by both campaigns. Once selected, audience members then submit their written questions to the moderator, who makes sure the questions are roughly divided between foreign policy and national security on the one hand, and domestic and economic policy on the other. The moderator is also tasked with removing any questions they findย โinappropriate.โ
Finally, the moderator must then come up with a process fulfilling the paradoxical task of both randomly selecting questions and making sure they cover โa wide range of issues of major public interest.โ The candidates must approve this process asย well.
While itโs not clear if the candidates did or did not sign a written agreement this year, the two campaigns did negotiate the debate rules, and it would not be surprising if they followed a similar process in earlier debates. Janet Brown, executive director of the CPD, told CNN that the moderators would select around eight audience members from a crowd of 40 to ask questions โwith the goal of maximizing the number of topics covered,โ suggesting the process is little changed from previousย years.
ABC News โ whose reporter Martha Raddatz co-moderated the debate alongside Anderson Cooper โ deferred a query about how those who ask questions at debates are vetted to the Commissions on President Debates and Gallup. CNN did not respond to a request forย comment.
Additional reporting by Brankoย Marcetic.
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