Posted on 01/03/2014 3:01:31 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Climate change and energy will be a major policy battleground in the 2014 midterms, advocates on both sides of the issue promise.
Republicans like Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) plan to go on the attack against President Obama’s climate action plan, which they have dubbed a “war on coal.”
They’re backed by conservative groups like the American Energy Alliance, which is already airing campaign ads attacking Democrats such as Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.) for supporting a carbon tax.
Green activists led by Tom Steyer plan to return fire.
The billionaire former hedge fund manager, who has poured his money into environmental causes, said Thursday that his New Year’s resolution is to make climate change a voter concern in 2014.
“This election year, more than ever, we must hold our leaders responsible for the role they play in the fight against climate change,” he wrote on NextGen Climate’s website, keystonetruth.com.
Energy and environmental issues are expected to take a front seat in dozens of races across the country, from coal country in West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, where Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) faces a tough reelection race just as she prepares to take up the chairmanship of the Senate Energy Committee.
Noise surrounding crude oil exports and offshore oil development from coastal states is already being made, and Landrieu may push policy that evens the playing ground for coastal states when it comes to collecting federal dollars tied to energy development.
In Alaska, Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) faces a difficult reelection battle in a major energy state. On Thursday, he distanced himself from Obama's climate agenda, pushing for more oil exploration.
Open-seat Senate races in South Dakota and Montana are also places where energy will be a major theme as the natural-gas boom becomes a prominent debate in 2014.
A number of political players are promising involvement.
The Sierra Club plans to highlight differences between candidates on energy issues. The green group touts that in 2014 it will mobilize its 2.1 million members and supporters to continue the momentum it built in 2013 races in Virginia and Colorado, where candidates it backed won reelection.
“Americans widely support climate solutions like accelerating job-creating wind and solar energy growth, tackling dangerous carbon pollution from dirty power plants, securing strong strangers to protect our air and water, and protecting our public lands from destructive drilling and mining — we will help ensure the contrasts between candidates on these issues are clear,” Sierra Club Director Michael Brune wrote in an email to The Hill.
McConnell, the most endangered Senate GOP incumbent, must prevail in a GOP primary and then fight off a highly touted Democratic opponent in Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of State.
McConnell has signaled he believes he can win by tying Lundergan Grimes to Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency.
He argues the EPA’s proposed regulations to cut carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants would hurt energy jobs, and held listening sessions on the issue in early December.
A super-PAC supporting McConnell's reelection bid, Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, came out with a new radio ad blasting Lundergan Grimes on coal earlier this month.
“Across Kentucky, thousands of coal jobs are disappearing. Obama's war on coal is hurting whole families and communities. But Obama says he needs more allies in Congress to finish forcing his liberal agenda on our country. That's why here in Kentucky Obama's supporting Alison Grimes,” a narrator says in the ad.
It’s not clear what candidates will benefit from Steyer’s backing, but he said NextGen Climate Action would look at races that could be won.
Some think Steyer could prove to be the Democrats' version of Charles and David Koch, the energy magnates who have poured money into organizations backing conservative causes.
“He is building a vast political network and seizing opportunities provided by loose campaign finance rules to insert himself into elections nationwide,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in a recent article.
He isn’t alone, either.
A recent report by the Center for Public Integrity revealed the liberal nonprofit League of Conservation Voters spent $15 million in 2012 backing "pro-environment" candidates.
And in 2013 the green group continued funding key allies like Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)
The group also spent $1.7 million overall in Virginia’s gubernatorial race in 2013, making it Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe's largest cash contributor outside of the Democratic Governor's Association.
McAuliffe ended up winning the race, which possibly featured the first "climate denier" attack ad, said Jeff Gohringer of the League of Conservation Voters.
McAuliffe set an example for future candidates “that when they lean into these issues, they will be supported by a strong political force,” Gohringer told The Hill days before McAuliffe was elected.
“We're proud of our success in Virginia and Massachusetts this year, and making climate change an issue in those races,” Gohringer told The Hill on Tuesday. “We want to build on that momentum.
“We're in the process of making decisions for 2014. Defending the Senate firewall to prevent the gutting of environmental protections will be a major priority for us,” Gohringer added.
Australia's conservative government has severely curtailed the country's climate change initiatives and is in the process of repealing its business-killing carbon tax. A group of German scientists predicts dramatic global cooling over the next 90 years toward a new "little ice age."
Of course, even many "low information" folks have an awareness of the record increase in Arctic sea ice, as well as the current highly-publicized predicament of the cadre of wealthy global warmists stuck in record-high sea ice while on a cruise to the Antarctic to prove the absence of sea ice.
Now the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has quietly downgraded their prediction for global warming for the next 30 years in the final draft of their landmark "Fifth Assessment Report." The effect of this is that they are tacitly admitting that the computer models they have religiously relied-upon for decades as "proof" of AGW theory are dead wrong.
The tipping point is near. I can smell it."
Washington Times: No more dead parrots - Global-warming fans spend a frozen Christmas in Antarctica "..........."..........Some people are born disconnected from reality and never learn any better. You could call the affliction the Dead Parrot Syndrome. Monty Python, the British comedy troupe, illustrated this 40 years ago in a sketch about a pet shop owner who tries to persuade a customer that a dead parrot he had just bought was actually alive. Punched or poked, the stiff and lifeless parrot wouldn’t move. The shopkeeper insisted the bird was just “stunned” and “pining for the fjords.” Global-warming fanatics are equally disconnected from reality. After a generation of scare tactics, dire warnings and apocalyptic predictions, the global-warming movement has become a caricature of itself. They’re learning just how difficult it is to sell a dead parrot.
I got -10 this morning.
I win.
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a ball of fire that controls our climates.
3. The earth is a rock.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
One would think that all volcanoes,calderas, hot springs and geysers past and present will disagree with your point #3. But on the larger part of your point, you are correct.
Yes, perhaps I should eliminate #3 from my argument? Do you have better wording for me? Thanks.
They don't want to control the Sun -- they want to control YOU.
Antartic 1 / IPCC, Al Gore, et al 0
Not really other than just as in the scale of the sun, the earth is just a spec in a very large and cold vacuum warmed only by the sun and what little in comparison by the magma core of the earth.
The bigger point they all miss is just how much the dark side of our orb cools on a daily basis. They refuse to acknowledge the “climate” of the sun and the overbearing effects it has on our daily lives.
One of my little gotcha moments I use with the environuts who are oblivious to the effects of the sun is to ask them to imagine if the sun was dialed down just 25% or snuffed out altogether. The looks on their faces is stunning.
Of course it is !
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a ball of fire that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
Wash, rinse and repeat. Over and over and over . . .
:)
And I changed the wording of #3. Is that better?
absolutely.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.