This TP repost spells out the close relationship Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has with the oil industry she is working so hard to protect.
This week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) held a press conference to tout her “Dirty Air Act” resolution that rolls back the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. As Climate Progress has detailed, Murkowski’s bill was drafted in consultation with Jeffrey R. Holmstead and Roger R. Martella Jr “” lobbyists for the coal and oil industry. Despite this fact, Murkowski has tried to downplay the influence of big oil on her efforts, claiming only her staff writes her actual amendments, and that she is motivated purely by the fear of “detrimental consequences” of Clean Air Act regulations.
But Murkowski’s own words help to clarify her relationship with the oil industry. In a startling speech given to the Oil and Gas Association Board of Directors on May 7, 2008, Murkowski asked the oil industry to “mobilize all your resources” for a massive campaign to “beat[] back bad legislation and regulations.” To combat “the growing hysteria over fossil fuel use,” Murkowski suggested that the oil industry “fund a major campaign to open areas of America to environmentally sensitive oil and gas exploration.” Murkowski commended the oil industry for “fight[ing] off efforts” to “add more red tape to gain drilling permits” and made clear that although she is facing “considerable and growing opposition” from Alaskan fishermen and whalers, her allegiance is with the oil industry in opening new drilling.
But possibly the most stunning statement was Murkowski’s claim that “new technology makes Santa Barbara wellhead blowouts impossible,” and that the oil industry should publicize this claim to the public in pushing for more drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, in the Gulf of Mexico, off Florida’s shores, and elsewhere. Of course, BP’s oil spill disaster appears to have been caused by problems with the wellhead blowout preventer technology, which Murkowski said was impossible:
“In the past six months you have had to fight off efforts to single out multinational oil producers for nearly $18 billion in tax hikes. You have had to fight off a host of proposals in last year’s House energy bill to restrict access to federal lands, add more red tape to gain drilling permits, and fight off efforts to take away your oil and gas leases.[...] A major campaign to explain directional drilling and how it prevents surface disruption over a hundred square miles, how new technology makes Santa Barbara wellhead blowouts impossible [...] But I am here to also encourage your industry to come out of the foxholes and to fully join the battle. Because it is clear that if you don’t mobilize all your resources, no one else is going to be successful in delivering the message that we need a balanced, rational energy policy in this country, and we need it right now.”
Tuesday: ThinkProgress spoke to Robert Dillon, Murkowski’s Communications Director at the Senate Energy Committee, about his boss’s 2008 speech. Dillon explained to ThinkProgress that BP’s oil disaster was not a result of a lack of regulation, but merely a lack of enforcement of existing regulations, and that Murkowski opposes “imposing regulations, more bureaucratic regulations and red tape” on the oil industry. When ThinkProgress pressed Dillon if that means Murkowski would oppose new regulations in the wake of BP’s oil spill, he ironically said no.
Transcript of Dillon’s comments below:
TP: In 2008, Senator Murkowski gave a speech to the executive committee of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association board of directors. And she praised the committee and said, this is a quote, “you have had to fight off efforts to single out multinational oil producers for nearly $18 billion in tax hikes. You have had to fight off a host of proposals in last year’s House energy bill to restrict access to federal lands, add more red tape to gain drilling permits, and fight off efforts to take away your oil and gas leases.” Do you think the Senator regrets praising the oil industry for fighting regulations and red tape.
DILLON: You’ve got a double edged sword here, you’ve got these companies the energy that we use for our national security right. Senator Murkowski supports the strictest environmental safety regulations and holding these companies fully accountable. [...]
TP: Now, we have this disaster in the Gulf that seems to have occurred because there were lax regulations on BP’s oil rig, you know, people weren’t inspecting the blowout protector and other things that could have prevented this tragedy-
DILLON: Yeah but those were regulations that weren’t enforced. That’s a big difference from saying than saying there could have been- I mean Senator Murkowski is saying, you know in that speech, imposing regulations, more bureaucratic regulations and red tape, piling it on, isn’t necessarily a good thing. But that’s completely different from saying we should be enforcing what is already on the books. And the problem we have here is you have things not being enforced, they didn’t follow the procedures that were already in place. And a lot of the problems is not living up to the standards already set-
TP: So, the Senator’s position is, we don’t need new regulations, just enforce the regulations that are already on the books?
DILLON: No, no, no, not fully. I’m saying, you’re talking about this speech, right. Obviously Senator Murkowski has said now, we need to review, she supports the administration’s review, she supports the time out in Alaska. She doesn’t support in shallow water, but she does support the review, the six month review. And she fully, has said repeatedly, that we are going to need to strengthen our safety regulations and we are going to see new regulations come out of that.
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Aww, c’mon, the wellhead that blew out wasn’t in Santa Barbara, was it?
(I’m in a cynical, sarcastic mood this morning)
Re: 1
No, the well head that blew was NOT in the NORTH SEA, where they have stricter regulations and BP also works. BP knows how to drill wells that do not blow out; they just do not bother in the US where the rules are lax and not enforced. In fact, I suggest that if BP goes bankrupt, it will be because weak US safety regulations did not protect BP from its own greed.
Conservatives tend to miss the whole psychology of risk analysis. Part of that psychology is that corporate executives cannot correctly perceive the risks of their own actions. This is not a criticism; it is simply a statement of how the human mind works.
Debate on EPA regulation of carbon dioxide now LIVE
http://cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN2.aspx
Omg, someone should brief Sen Kit Bond on the new clean economy.
The enormous cost of not regulating greenhouse gas emission means total destruction. That does include economy.
It’s like watching a 80′s debate, listening to these dinosaurs.
Whitehouse talks now tacheles.
GHG at 392 but 350 might be upper suggested limit.
Removing 42 already established plus correcting for
current emissions plus correcting for increased
untold amounts of methane exposure.
My goodness, there are going to be some very upset
people when they find that the scientists didn’t
clean up their mess for them.
Now remember that the technique in bull fighting
is to step aside and le the raging bull go on past
or run or never step into the ring at all.
Sorry, I don’t even know who says that such a mess
can be cleaned up.
Thanks very much for the background. This is good information on the background of the ongoing sickness of the moneymakers in the “temple” of our poor beleaguered planet earth.
FWIW here’s the meat of a fax I sent to my NC Senators (Burr-R and Hagan-D) re Murkowski vote–I feel like I spent half a day on this paltry effort so I’m posting it here, I get tongue tied on the phone:
I am writing to urge you to vote NO on Senator Murkowski’s bill to gut EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, S.J.Res 26.
1) I find the tactics being used (Congressional Review Act) totally abhorrent. There was a firestorm of protest from the GOP when it was thought that health care reform would be passed with 51 votes under budget reconciliation. This only goes to show the utter hypocrisy of the GOP and their fellow Senators from the states of Oil, Coal and Denial.
2) Secondly, for specific Senators to argue that it should be Congress not the EPA to do something when those Senators clearly want nothing done at all is the height of hypocrisy.
It is also clearly a smokescreen. It was an uphill battle in the House and the Senate clearly is having a very hard time doing this even with it’s feet in the fire.
In addition, the two approaches can work together:
a) EPA regulation and any final climate change bill can work in tandem, and is the only way to assure that a final bill has any teeth and fairness
b) Without EPA power to act there is no assurance that any climate bill will do any good at all
c) The EPA is proposing reasonable rules on only the very largest stationary sources. (This hasn’t prevented a lot of scaremongering.)
d) The EPA has worked effectively with automakers to improve vehicle standards
3) For the Senate to vote that global warming isn’t happening and our carbon emissions are not a problem would be like voting that there is no oil gushing into the Gulf, hey! problem solved!
4) The Supreme Court has already ruled on this! You’d think folks who are always hollering about the Constitution (when it’s a politically convenient prop) would have more respect, and more sense.
Just as the entire Gulf is filling up with oil, and birds are being cooked alive in goop, and around the world we are seeing 1000 year floods and heatwaves, could the Senate seriously vote that we should block what is already settled law?
5) The Murkowski amendment would block EPA actions to improve vehicle efficiency, save US drivers and businesses millions of dollars, and reduce our oil use. The popularity of Cash for Clunkers showed that Americans desperately want to get more mpg. Even the auto industry opposes the Murkowski amendment.
6) If the Senate approves this measure, after a year’s delay in passing a climate change bill, it will signal to the rest of the world that the US refuses to act on global warming.
7) Some Senators see this vote as a warning shot to EPA over coal and efforts to constrain mountain top mining. Confucius said “don’t take a hatchet to kill a fly on your friend’s forehead!”
8) Our economy needs to move forward not backwards. Oil and coal exploration, production, refining, transport and end use have been quietly devastating our soil, rivers, oceans, and wildlife for many decades. Less visible, but even more dangerous, we have already changed the climate and are on course to change it out of all recognition.
Coal, oil and gas are all finite fuels and will become harder to produce as we try to get the last resources, and more expensive if increasing demand outstrips decreasing supply. Those economies that jump ahead and structure themselves to function without fossil fuels are those that will survive, and those that don’t wont.
9) According to a Washington Post/ABC poll released today, 71% “back federal regulation of of the release of greenhouse gases from sources like power plants, cars and factories in an effort to reduce global warming. The idea also had strong majority support in polls last year….. More than half of Republicans also favor the new controls.”
Americans also overwhelmingly support cleaner and more sustainable energy sources (in spite of billions in PR to persuade us otherwise), but need federal action by both the EPA and Congress to put caps and/or prices on carbon emissions and to have the artificial barriers to clean energy removed.
10) I am also extremely concerned that polluting facilities and corporations would use this mechanism to roll back other public health protections.
47 AYE to 53 NAY
I second Boxer’s remark and Thank You from my heart!
Study: Well most likely spewing more than 1M gallons of oil a day
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061003683.html?hpid=topnews