The Wonk Room has previously identified seven key U.S. Senate races and fourteen U.S. House races between a vote for climate action and a global warming denier. Today, the Wonk Room highlights four gubernatorial races which could shut down the clean energy revolution in the Midwest. In Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, four Democratic governors who have supported clean energy may be replaced by Republicans who have expressed fealty to big oil. The Republican candidates — Terry Branstad in Iowa, Sen. Sam Brownback in Kansas, Rep. Mary Fallin in Oklahoma, and Matt Mead in Wyoming — hold commanding leads in the polls over their Democratic opponents. The Republicans mock global warming as a conspiracy, doubt that it is caused by manmade pollution, and promote the expansion of the coal and oil industries in their states.

The heartland of America is under extreme threat from the destructive power of global warming, including increasingly frequent catastrophic storms, heat waves, and drought. Furthermore, by denying the opportunity of clean energy jobs, these potential governors risk turning their states into economic wastelands.

IOWA – Terry Branstad
KANSAS – Sam Brownback
OKLAHOMA – Mary Fallin
WYOMING – Matt Mead

IOWA

Former governor Terry Branstad is leading Gov. Chet Culver (D-IA) in the race to run Iowa’s government. Remarkably, even though Iowa is increasingly devastated by catastrophic floods, Branstad’s only public policy position on global warming pollution is:

– To “wholeheartedly” support a coal-fired power plant opposed by NASA scientist Jim Hansen because it would emit 5.9 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, and

– To support the construction of a South Dakota oil refinery near the Iowa border that will emit 19 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Furthermore, Branstad has attacked Culver’s $875 million flood recovery plan, falsely claiming “it saddled Iowans with excessive debt.”

Read more

Our guest blogger is Todd Darling, a documentary filmmaker whose film, “A Snow Mobile For George,” is being featured tonight in Washington, D.C., by Reel Progress.

Back on January 13, 2004, when I left Los Angeles loaded down with cameras, winter gear, and a threadbare credit card, few, if any heads would turn at the mention of “deregulation.” Head movement would be limited to a nod, as in “nod out.”

Wall Street’s wipe out changes that. Now we realize that we let the fox into the hen house, and now the fox wants to be reimbursed for the chickens he ate. But, when I set out to make “A Snow Mobile for George,” a film about environmental deregulation, the concept of deregulation was too abstract for most viewers. That’s why I picked the environment because the effects of deregulation had no place to hide. My drive across America, trailing my two-stroke snowmobile, looking for tales of environmental deregulation, didn’t turn up a lot of joy. The reason why should not have surprised me. Simply put, the same deregulation that mangled the environment, also ruined people’s lives. Watch the trailer:

This discovery hit us hard out on a snow-covered ridge in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. A tall cowboy told us his land had been invaded by oil companies. They had come onto his land, uninvited, looking for natural gas — “Coal Bed Methane.” The companies drilled four wells every 80 acres, built roads, installed pipe lines, pumped away his water supplies, polluted his top-soil, installed noisy pressure stations, damaged the natural vegetation, and he had almost no say in the matter. He has been virtually forced off his own private land. Read more