Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) defended the “Dirty Air Act,” her attempt to overturn the EPA’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding. Murkowski introduced her resolution to overturn the Supreme Court-mandated decision yesterday, with three Democratic and thirty-five Republican co-sponsors. Climate activists have dubbed Senate Joint Resolution 26 the “Dirty Air Act” for its unprecedented attempt to roll back the Clean Air Act. “A vote for the Murkowski resolution, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Kierán Suckling said, “is a vote to gut the Clean Air Act and do nothing about global warming.” Murkowski called this label “wildly inaccurate”:

I’d also like to address a rather creative claim that has been made that somehow I’m trying to gut the Clean Air Act or subvert it into a “Dirty Air Act.” I have to admit that when I first saw this it actually made me laugh because it is so wildly inaccurate. Neither my previous amendment nor this resolution would have any affect on pollution standards and controls. Neither would change a single word of the current statute. My resolution would simply prevent the massive, unwarranted expansion of this statute by halting EPA’s efforts to use it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, a purpose for which it was never intended and a role that it simply cannot fulfill without serious and detrimental consequences.

Watch it:

Murkowski’s claim that her resolution would not “have any affect on pollution standards and controls” is false.

Murkowski’s previous amendment to block regulation of stationary-source pollution, which she first proposed last September, was written by polluter lobbyists who used to be top officials in the Bush Environmental Protection Agency, where they blocked the scientific finding that global warming pollution threatens the health and welfare of the American people. Her new resolution is even more radical, attempting to overturn the entire endangerment finding that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare. As Sen. Murkowski herself admitted: “In April 2007, the Supreme Court declared, in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA, that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.”

Murkowski’s official policy is that “climate change is a real threat that must be addressed”:

Our climate is changing, and the impacts are real. Villages in my home state of Alaska are literally falling into the sea because of climate-related erosion. To me, climate change is not just an abstract threat, looming on the horizon – it’s something that’s already here. The question is not whether we should reduce emissions, but how we should reduce them. [9/23/09]

The confluence of high oil prices this past summer and a desire to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions has certainly and justifiably promoted the interest in and development of renewable and alternative forms of energy – from more mature technologies like wind and solar to greater awareness of the potential for geothermal, biomass, and ocean and tidal energy – along with greater energy efficiency and conservation measures. [6/2/09]

The very existence of the Alaska Native way of life is threatened by the impacts of recent climate changes. [2009]

Murkowski — who has admitted that greenhouse gas emissions are “harmful” and a “real threat” — is now trying to do the dirty work for her pollution industry contributors, now that George W. Bush’s polluter lackeys are no longer in control of the White House.

Samsung Signs $6.6 Billion Deal to Build Wind and Solar Power in Ontario

In what’s being described as the largest deal of its kind in the world, Samsung C&T and the Ontario government signed a $6.6 billion investment deal Thursday under which the Korean industrial conglomerate will build 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power in the province, as well as establish manufacturing facilities that will build the equipment.

The third player in the deal is Korea Electric Power Corp., the country’s largest utility, with 10,200 megawatts of generation capacity worldwide, including a new 1,200-megawatt wind farm in China.

The deal, initially proposed by Samsung a year ago, was spurred on by the province’s Green Energy Act, which was passed last year to provide generous incentives for clean-energy production. “This means Ontario is officially the place to be for green energy manufacturing in North America,” Ontario’s premier, Dalton McGuinty, said during a signing ceremony in Toronto.

Under the terms of the agreement, officials said, Samsung must build four manufacturing plants in Ontario, promising 16,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next five years. The energy generated will be enough for 580,000 homes.

“I think 16,000 jobs in this economy is pretty good,” said Mr. McGuinty, who has taken some criticism for selecting Samsung without an open tendering process. He rejected suggestions that Samsung’s presence would crowd out other suppliers.

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Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is the third Democrat to co-sponsor a resolution to overturn the scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger the American public. Yesterday, Nelson joined Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) in supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) lobbyist-designed resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 26, dubbed the “Dirty Air Act” by climate activists. Nelson justified his move to protect polluters from scientific reality by complaining that senators “don’t need EPA looking over Congress’ shoulder telling us we’re not moving fast enough”:

Controlling the levels of carbon emissions is the job of Congress. We don’t need EPA looking over Congress’ shoulder telling us we’re not moving fast enough. I am very concerned about the impact on Nebraska if EPA moves to regulate carbon emissions. Many Nebraska agricultural, industrial and energy-related businesses and organizations have warned about the costs they would have to shoulder from EPA regulations. Because EPA regulations would be a government-directed command-and-control regime, they would raise the price of energy in Nebraska, add greatly to administrative costs, and create new layers of bureaucracy. The burden would fall squarely on Nebraska families, farmers and businesses.

Scientists have been warning Washington D.C. about the dangers of greenhouse gases for over three decades now. Their work was suppressed by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for eight years. Now it appears Ben Nelson and his ilk are stepping in to take their place.

In reality, nearly all of the pollution sites that would fall under greenhouse gas rules are already subject to Clean Air Act permits for other pollutants, such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, and soot. As the last 40 years of success for the Clean Air Act have proven, its enforcement cleans the air, improves the public’s health, and strengthens our economy by rewarding efficiency and innovation instead of pollution.

Meanwhile, the costs of climate damages rise for Nelson’s state, falling squarely on Nebraska families, farmers, and businesses. Nearly all of Nebraska has been declared a disaster area because of drought, severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding.

Nelson further claimed that he believes “carbon emissions should be reduced”:

Carbon emissions should be reduced, but not through costly and complicated EPA regulations or a disadvantageous cap and trade proposal in Congress. They should be reduced through a comprehensive energy bill that promotes efficiencies and renewable energy through innovation and new technology that will help our state’s economy as we clean up the air.

Nelson has never supported a bill or policy that would achieve those goals. He opposed Lieberman-Warner in 2008, voted against McCain-Lieberman in 2005, and skipped the vote on McCain-Lieberman in 2003.

Nelson seemingly prefers to listen to his polluter donors than to scientific fact. In 2009 alone, Nelson received $553,300 from agribusiness, $164,200 from oil and gas interests, and $140,199 from electric utilities. Nelson has even taken $31,500 from the virulently right-wing Koch Industries, the private pollution giant that has mobilized tea party opposition to climate and health care legislation. Berkshire Hathaway, whose subsidiary MidAmerican Energy is one of the nation’s largest coal-powered utilities, opposes climate legislation and has given Nelson $51,800. Coal-hauling Union Pacific is Nelson’s number-three contributor at $49,750.

Part 3: How bad messaging creates a self-fulfillling failure of will.

Here’s an anonymous Senate staffer in an email published by TPM Josh Marshall:

The worst is that I can’t help but feel like the main emotion people in the caucus are feeling is relief at this turn of events. Now they have a ready excuse for not getting anything done. While I always thought we had the better ideas but the weaker messaging, it feels like somewhere along the line Members internalized a belief that we actually have weaker ideas. They’re afraid to actually implement them and face the judgement of the voters. That’s the scariest dynamic and what makes me think this will all come crashing down around us in November.

Nowhere could that be clearer than in climate and clean energy jobs bill.

The public support for action — including by a clear majority of independents and even many Republicans — could not be stronger as poll and poll makes clear.  And still we see the likes of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pointlessly back-pedaling on this straight-out political winner.  Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise from her — she clearly doesn’t get the paramount importance of averting catastrophic global warming (see “Sen. Feinstein’s scuttling of solar, wind projects a baffling mistake“).  But I don’t understand why some top climate scientists, a number of whom live and work in California, haven’t visited her to spell out what unrestricted emissions will do to that great state — see Steven Chu on climate change: “Wake up,” America, “we’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California,” Part 2.

If there is no comprehensive bill this year, and it was an iffy proposition before the Massachusetts Senate debacle, the main reasons will continue to be the polluter-backed disinformation campaign and anti-science ideologues.  But a related reason will be the “massive botch” of progressive messaging — see Part 1 and Part 2 (and yes, I will start laying out the positive message in the next week).

So here’s the whole email from the Senate staffer — and I welcome (anonymous) emails from any Hill staffers (current or former) who might take a different view:

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Even Frank Luntz sees it as a winning message

Every major poll shows popular support for a bipartisan clean air, clean energy jobs bills that preserves a livable climate and reduces oil consumption (see “It’s all about Independents “” and Independence“).  Guest blogger and CAP Senior Fellow, Daniel J. Weiss, discusses yet another major new survey — by Obama’s campaign pollster — with a similar finding.  Weiss also examines a new poll by GOP master messager Frank Luntz — the former bane of climate realists (see Bush climate speech follows Luntz playbook: “Technology, technology, blah, blah, blah”).  I’ll blog more about Luntz’s conclusions on messaging next week.

In the wake of Massachusetts’ surprising election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, several moderate Senate Democrats have expressed new found reservations about whether the Senate should pass a global warming pollution reduction bill. For instance, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), with little knowledge of public concerns, said that “It’s clear from the hiatus a large cap-and-trade bill isn’t going to go ahead at this time.”

These fears are completely out of step with public opinion.  On January 21, a Republican and Democratic pollster released separate polls that found that there is strong bipartisan support to reduce the pollution responsible for global warming.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz was a primary architect of the 1994 “Contract with America” that helped the GOP win the House for the first time since 1953.   Luntz surveyed 1007 registered voters and conducted “Instant Response” qualitative dial sessions.

Despite endless attacks on climate science by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other Republican leaders, Luntz found that 43% of Republicans “definitely” or “probably” “believe CLIMATE CHANGE is caused at least in part by humans.”

Luntz also determined that there is strong bipartisan support for action on global warming:

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