By David Carkhuff
Staff writer
david@portlanddailysun.me
Using paid advertising combined with media events, activists this week have been targeting Maine’s Republican senators, trying to earn their votes a key climate change vote slated for today (Thursday).
But the national political agenda will not end with the vote. On Saturday, a coalition of veterans and national security organizations will host a town hall meeting here to call for passage of comprehensive climate and energy legislation.
A flurry of advocacy ads will try to affect a vote today on what’s called the “Murkowski amendment.”
The name refers to U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, will bring legislation to the Senate floor for debate today to disapprove of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent endangerment finding that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant and harmful to human health and the environment. Murkowski and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, agreed to bring the joint resolution, S.J. 26, to the floor for up to six hours of debate before voting on a motion to proceed.
If the motion is successful by 51-vote majority, the Senate would then allow for an hour debate before voting on its passage, which also requires 51 votes.
Operation Free, a coalition of veterans and national security organizations “dedicated to securing America with clean energy,” according to its literature, on Wednesday pushed for a no vote on the Murkowski amendment.
“We need strong climate change legislation to address the security threats associated with climate change and our dependence on oil,” said Maine state Rep. Alexander Cornell Du Houx, D-Brunswick, an Iraq War veteran with Truman National Security Project and Operation Free, during a press event at Portland City Hall Wednesday.
Rep. Du Houx said Collins and Snowe have shown independence in their handling of national security and environmental issues.
According to her staff, Sen. Collins has not decided how she will vote on the Murkowski resolution. To date, Collins is the only Senate Republican to introduce comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, her staff reported in an email message Wednesday.
“While I support regulating greenhouse gas emissions, I have reservations about the sweeping approach EPA is pursuing,” Collins said in a statement. “For example, for the first time the EPA has classified biomass as not carbon neutral, which could have a negative impact on Maine’s forest products industry. I have not yet decided how I will vote on the Murkowski resolution, and I continue to believe the best way to proceed is for Congress to pass a framework for regulating carbon emissions as Senator Cantwell and I proposed in the CLEAR Act.”
Efforts to solicit a response from the office of Sen. Snowe for comment on her position on the Murkowski amendment were unsuccessful.
Advocacy groups aren’t taking anything for granted.
Du Houx said big dollars are coming from the Truman National Security Project, a national security leadership institute which calls itself “the nation’s only organization that recruits, trains and positions a new generation of progressives across America to lead on national security.”
“The Truman National Security Project, we’ve launched a $3 million ad buy with Republicans for Environmental Sustainability, and that’s airing in Maine and a number of other states,” Du Houx said Wednesday.
Du Houx said the $3 million ad buy will try to sway the outcome of this vote.
“It’s aimed at the senators who we think should be leaders on this issue,” he said. “Senator Collins and Senator Snowe in the past have been very strong on national security and they’ve been strong on environmental issues. We hope they will continue to do that by not supporting the Murkowski amendment.”
Separately, the group Americans United for Change announced on Tuesday the launch of a new ad in Maine, urging Collins to break with fellow Republicans to reject Murkowski’s bid to reject EPA rules on emissions.
The group is pouring $40,000 into Portland from Tuesday through Thursday with an ad mirroring a national spot airing in Washington, according to a press release. The ad urges Collins to back Democrats’ effort to reject the Murkowski resolution, and is based on indications, a group spokesman said, that Collins is inclined to back the legislation.
The ad ties the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the new EPA rules, with a video of a gushing pipeline playing behind other images and narration in the ad.
While activists decried Murkowski’s amendment as an attack on the Clean Air Act, advocates for the amendment say the EPA is acting like a rogue agency. Nicolas Loris, a research assistant at The Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, said the EPA is beginning the process “of imposing costly and environmentally questionable CO2 cuts by using the Clean Air Act. … Mandating more miles-per-gallon increases the cost of buying a new car and makes them less safe.”
Adam Lee, president of Lee Auto Malls, disagreed, saying the endangerment finding makes sense for auto manufacturers. He opposed the Murkowski amendment while speaking at Wednesday’s press event, invoking the memory of Maine Sen. Ed Muskie, a renowned Maine Democratic congressman and environmentalist.
“We need to protect our air and water, we need cars to get better gas mileage, we need to use less oil and gas, and we need to import less oil from abroad,” Lee said. “Doing these things may or may not cost us more money. … Some things are worth paying for. If Ed Muskie could see this, he would roll over in his grave.”
In an interview, Lee explained that he’s one of the few auto dealers speaking up for the EPA regulations and related mileage standards for automobiles.
“It’s an unusual position to take because for whatever reason there don’t seem to be many auto dealers who feel a need to speak out on this,” Lee said. “However, I’ll say the auto manufacturers agree. They do not want to see this pass either because they worked very hard to come up with a national standard last year, a new fuel economy standard. … They feel they got the compromises they needed to make themselves comfortable.”
Beyond today’s vote on the Murkowski amendment, groups are looking long-range at clean-energy legislation.
At 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the Portland Public Library, Operation Free will host a town hall meeting with top retired military leaders and veterans, along with local elected officials, “to discuss the connection between climate change and national security, and call for passage of comprehensive climate and energy legislation.”
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