Senate nominee Gabriel Gomez (R-MA) (Credit: The Republican)

Gabriel Gomez acknowledges that ”science says climate change is real.” But the Republican nominee to fill John Kerry’s open Senate seat in Massachusetts says he is unwilling to take serious steps to combat it, lest it hurt the economy in the short term.

His support for a “serious energy agenda,” including the risky Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, coincides with his own significant investments in dirty energy companies.

On his campaign website, Gomez writes:

Climate change is real. However, while science says climate change is real, addressing the problem must be done rationally. Unfortunately, many solutions offered by politicians in Washington are not rational, and would put America at a competitive disadvantage. We need a serious energy agenda that promotes private sector innovation in both the United States and in other countries around the world.

He also attacks the Obama administration as “wrong in stopping the Keystone pipeline, a project that will create jobs, drive down our energy costs, and help us to become energy independent.” Beyond serious environmental risks, the Keystone XL project would create just 35 permanent jobs, would do little for American energy security, would actually raise energy costs for many Americans.

While his opponent, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), has made clean energy and defending the environment a top priority throughout his tenure in Congress, Gomez repeatedly bashes the Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member for being “focused on everything but the economy.” A 2009 study by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute found that Markey’s proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), combined with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would have created a net 1.7 million more American jobs.

A ThinkProgress review of Gomez’s personal financial disclosure filings reveals that a significant amount of his own money is invested, directly or indirectly, in Dirty Energy stocks and bonds. These include investments of between $1,000 and $15,000 each in: Read more

by Brad Johnson

“If our country goes over the fiscal cliff, we will be able to climb back up. But if our planet goes over the climate cliff, we will plunge into an abyss of impacts that we cannot reverse.”

With these words, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) exposed the essential absurdity of the “fiscal cliff” debate in a Washington, DC address last week. Over 10,000 Americans have spoken out in agreement, calling on Washington to turn to the looming climate cliff.

The leaders of the “fiscal cliff” debate claim their stances are based on their sober-minded obligations to our children and grandchildren, even as they shirk their true responsibility to confront the fossil fuel industry, whose rogue behavior threatens the very existence of future generations.

During his debates with Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama argued that “reducing the deficit” is a “moral obligation to the next generation.” House Speaker John Boehner told the National Religious Broadcasters that “leaving our debt on its unsustainable and immoral path” will “truly cause pain and suffering.”

Some leaders in Washington are speaking out against the absurdity of climate silence during the fiscal debate. Watch Markey’s remarks:

In a Senate floor speech last week, Senate Budget Committee member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) juxtaposed the moral rhetoric of his Republican colleagues around the stimulus, health care, and the debt with their continued refusal to even acknowledge climate change:

Read more

The House of Representatives holds the title of the most anti-environment House in congressional history. Led by Republicans, the House has voted against the environment 247 times in the last 18 months, averaging one anti-environmental vote for every day the House has been in session.

The newest report, released by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), finds that many of these votes have directly benefited the oil and gas industry. According to the report:

• One out of every five votes has either rolled back protections for public lands, clean air, clean water, or enriched the oil industry.
• There were 77 votes undermining Clean Air and public health protections, including new EPA regulation of mercury toxins.
• Another 39 votes would weaken public lands protections, 37 votes to block climate change action, and 31 votes against Clean Water Act protection.
• The House voted to enrich the oil and gas industry 109 times, a total 44 percent of its anti-environment votes. There were 38 votes to prevent clean energy deployment and 12 votes to expedite review of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Republicans have close ties to the industries seeking to roll back environmental protections. House Republicans have received 8o percent of the oil industry’s campaign contributions over their careers, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Center for Responsive Politics data. House Republicans have taken $38 million from the industry throughout their careers. By comparison, House Democrats have taken nearly $9 million, meaning Republican members have received more than four times as much of oil’s dollars as Democratic members. Meanwhile, coal contributions to Congress are on track this year to beat a record $8.1 million spending, and House Republicans have taken 85 percent of the coal industry’s cash.

After slashing key clean energy programs 13 times in recent weeks, the GOP will continue their sterling track record with a series of bills that protect their donors’ interests ahead of public health, public lands, and clean air. According to Markey, these bills count as “one of the largest fire sales of America’s taxpayer-owned land in history while attacking the bedrock environmental laws that protect our water, our air, and our people.”

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The “battle over energy exports is intensifying” and at the same time we have no coherent national export policy were the primary takeaways from an event called “Power Play:  Fossil Fuels and U.S. Export Strategy” held this morning at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.  Coal, refined petroleum products from tar sands, and natural gas are currently being exported to hungry overseas markets, and the event was designed to look at the implications of these decisions.

Panelists Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA)  bemoaned the fact that the United States does not have a national strategy on exports.  Wyden accused the country of being “on autopilot” to an energy export policy, which could have tremendous economic, social, and environmental consequences.  He expanded:

So I have been somebody who’s been expansionist on trade and think that we ought to have freer trade, have fairer trade, but we also need to have smarter trade.  And allowing energy producers—we haven’t really touched on this—to trade away our international competitiveness and our energy independence by exporting the resources right now without thinking through the implications here of what it means for consumers and our companies doesn’t strike me as a smart trade policy.

Watch it:

As the price of natural gas continues to plummet, pressure to export it as liquefied natural gas has increased, and last year the U.S. was a net exporter of refined petroleum products for the first time since 1949.  As well, the coal industry is preparing to significantly increase exports of American coal overseas.  In response to these trends, the members detailed four critical areas that could be impacted by exports, which they believe need more careful consideration:  domestic energy, national security, consumer prices, and environmental impacts.

A second panel addressed different perspectives on coal exports.  Panelists represented the energy finance industry, Pacific Northwest residents impacted by coal export traffic and terminals, landowners concerned about the impacts of mining, and a labor and environmental alliance.

Markey, who released a report at the event entitled “Drill Here, Sell There, Pay More,” summed up the need for serious thinking on exports by saying:

We should first decide what we want to do for the United States of America.