Lisa Murkowski

Sen. Lisa Murkowski is open to voting for a cap-and-trade climate bill if it would aggressively boost nuclear power and domestic oil and gas drilling, she said in a C-SPAN interview aired on Oct. 18.  “Count me as one of those who will keep my mind open as we move forward,” she said. 

“It seems like we’ve gotten to this point where you’re either for Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer or you’re against the environment,” she continued.  “That’s not a fair statement or comparison.” She said she’s spoken with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-N.C.) about climate legislation, after Graham teamed up with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to call for a bipartisan climate bill.

Murkowski also talked in the C-SPAN interview about how climate change is already affecting her home state:  “When you see changes to the land coming about ... what is causing the loss of the sea ice that adds to the erosion issues, yes, in Alaska we are seeing change,” she said. “And that’s why I have been one of those Republicans who has perhaps stepped out front a little bit more on the issue of climate change.” 

Just a month earlier, in September, Murkowski ticked off the green community by proposing a budget-bill amendment that would prevent the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide from stationary sources like power plants and factories for one year.  The amendment did not actually come up for a vote, but Murkowski has continued to argue that the EPA should keep out of the business of regulating CO2 until Congress acts on the issue. 

Also in mid-September, Murkowski issued a press release asserting that the cost of the Waxman-Markey House climate bill would be much higher than the Obama administration was admitting. “I believe we need to do something about climate change, but I’m equally concerned about the health of the economy,” she said.  “We shouldn’t pass legislation that makes it harder for Americans to get back on their feet.”

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Here’s more on Murkowski and climate, as written by Kate Sheppard on July 30, 2009:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, cosponsored many components of the energy bill that passed out of the committee in June. She was one of four Republicans to support the measure, which will likely be packaged with a climate bill this fall.

Murkowski talked up GOP committee members’ successful efforts “to include a number of provisions that will lead to more domestic production of the conventional energy we need to drive this country,” but she said she will push for still more when the bill reaches the Senate floor. “We simply must do more to increase our domestic [energy] production and use of nuclear energy,” she said.

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Murkowski does not like the climate bill that passed the House in June. “Waxman-Markey Not a Solution to Climate Change,” declared a press release she issued after the bill’s passage. “This bill was forced through the House in a process designed to minimize open, transparent debate and preclude a thorough analysis of what the bill actually does,” she said. “The cost of this legislation remains staggering, and the mechanisms within the bill to contain those costs are inadequate.”

“Climate change is a problem we should address, but we must do so in a responsible manner that will safeguard our economy,” she continued.

Do you know more about this senator’s stance on climate legislation?  Tell us.

Find out about other senators by clicking on their names in the right column.

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Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

Why is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) behaving like an outlaw? It’s jarring to learn that Sen. Murkowski wants to take away U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries, coal-burning power plants and other smokestack industries.  As reported in Environment and Energy Daily, Murkowski has filed a proposed amendment to spending legislation for EPA that would prohibit the agency from regulating greenhouse pollutants except those from cars or other “mobile” sources:

“Senator Murkowski is concerned about the economic consequences of EPA command-and-control regulation of emissions,” said spokesman Robert Dillon. The senator plans to file the amendment, Dillon said, adding that he did not know whether a decision has been made to press for a vote.

Murkowski’s amendment would thwart the 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said EPA does have authority under the Clean Air Act to deal with climate pollution, as long as the agency determines that it is a threat to health and/or the environment.  EPA is moving ahead with that determination.  Because the judicial branch has spoken so definitively, EPA must follow the law.  By trying to block the agency through such a sneaky, back-door approach, Murkowski is bidding to become a climate outlaw.

The weird part here is that Murkowski herself has warned about the impact of global warming on Alaska—where, as Politico put it earlier this year, “the Alaskan tundra thaws and fishing villages disappear into the ocean.” USA Today once called Alaska the “poster state” for climate concerns.

And no wonder: Alaska’s climate has warmed about 4°F since the 1950’s. That has prompted more rain, the melting of two major glaciers and permafrost melting which has caused erosion, landslides, and damaged infrastructure. Some coastal towns could be overwhelmed by flooding.  Carbon-caused ocean acidification threatens fish populations.

Grotesque evidence of the problem was recently reported as scientists determined the Arctic sea ice had reached the third-lowest level ever recorded: up to 200 walruses, which appear to be mostly new calves and yearlings, were reported dead near Icy Cape on the north coast of Alaska.

We can’t wait to hear Murkowski’s argument should she proceed with this ill-considered idea.  Is she going to claim that this is something better handled by Congress?  If so, why has she denounced the comprehensive climate legislation approved by the House?  We suspect Murkowski is responding to the big campaign contributions she has received from the oil and electric power industries, both of which oppose EPA action.  One major contributor is ExxonMobil, which continues to operate in Alaska despite its notoriety over the Exxon Valdez spill.

Several hours after Clean Air Watch alerted reporters by email about the Murkowski plan, a spokesman for Murkowski argued she “is not trying to subvert the process”:

The senator has no interest in trampling on that Supreme Court decision as it relates to mobile sources.

Exactly our point: she does want to trample on the Supreme Court decision as it relates to stationary sources.  Murkowski has shown no interest in being constructive on the climate debate, so her defense of waiting for congressional action is obviously a fraud designed only to kill the Clean Air Act.  Which is exactly what the Big Oil companies and her other financial supporters want. Her plan to handcuff the EPA is nothing but duplicitous special-interest pandering that should be rejected out of hand.

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When President Obama attends the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meeting (or the more innocuous sounding, North American Leaders Summit) in Guadalajara he has the opportunity to keep some campaign promises.

The SPP has been referred to as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on steroids. For good reason.

As a candidate Obama was a strong opponent of NAFTA. During a primary debate in Cleveland Obama said : "I will make sure that we renegotiate... I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage...". He noted that NAFTA had outsourced millions of jobs, had weak provisions for protection of the environment and labor standards.

Now, it seems he has "softened quite a bit, to put it mildly", according to former US Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci.

Candidate Obama said, in an Obama Administration, meetings would be conducted with transparency and the active involvement of citizens, labor, the private sector and non-governmental organizations. So why hasn't he scrapped SPP?

At least NAFTA was debated in Congress, SPP is a strictly closed door meeting between the Administrations of the US, Canada, Mexico and the North American Competitiveness Council.

No citizen input, no governmental oversight, just the "Three Amigos" and big business interests.

Unless he has completely softened on the tough talk of his candidacy he must end SPP. SPP, it seems, could just be a clever way to follow through on the provisions of NAFTA that were launched in 1994.

"Harmonization", a key component of SPP, will lower the standards that protect the environment, the safety of our food and our health.

Other than increasing the profits of corporations, the hopped up, secretly negotiated SPP offers no benefit to the average American. Either in security or prosperity. We have seen the emergence of the Swine flu, numerous food safety violations and the never ending loss of jobs.

Mexico has seen its economy collapse, a cycle of increasing violence, militarization and drug trafficking. Small farmers have been pushed off their land and into abject poverty. Now big business and the Three Amigos offer them more of the same only faster? So who is benefiting? Canada?

Hardly, Canadians have never liked NAFTA, and the best SPP can offer them is increased mining of the Alberta Tar Sands to fuel the US appetite for oil and more armed Transportation and Security Administration officers on Canadian soil.

President Obama has given enough ground on his campaign promises; on ending torture, on single payer health care, on ending the war. It's time to bring trade into the light of day, like he promised.

A partnership should be built on more than bureaucrats and fat cat businessmen, it needs citizen involvement and approval.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio perhaps stated it best, "We need to change the nature of our trade agreements. I hope this new president will lead us in that direction-- toward more democracy and less exploitation. We'll see."

Yes, we'll see.

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The U.S. Postal Service screwed up and delivered a farewell card to us that was clearly intended for Sarah Palin, the now ex-governor of Alaska. We didn’t realize the error before we had opened it, scanned it, and published it here for your reading pleasure. An honest mistake, really… (Click to open.)

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Mark Begich

Sen. Mark Begich beat out everyone's favorite Senate curmudgeon, "Uncle" Ted Stevens (R), in a tight race last fall. And while he's seen as a modest improvement in the environmental realm, he's also a steadfast supporter of increased oil and gas drilling, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Begich has advocated for a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. "Alaska is ground zero for the effects of climate change," Begich told Grist last summer, noting that climate policy should include adaptation strategies for places like his home state that are already feeling its effects. During his run for the Senate, he called for a renewable electricity standard of 25 percent by 2025 and efficiency improvements to reduce energy consumption 25 percent by 2018.

But this year he was among the Democrats who voted against passing climate policy through the budget reconciliation process.

Track the debate and take action >>>

As a senator from a conservative state that draws much of its income from the oil and gas industry, Begich is not a sure vote for a climate bill.

Do you know more about this senator's stance on climate legislation? Tell us.

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The cap-and-trade climate and energy bill passed by the House last month is not a perfect piece of legislation. Critics on the right and left have leveled tough criticisms at it, questioning whether it will do much to accomplish its stated goal of cutting carbon emissions or if it will overburden average consumers with high energy prices.

Palin takes to the pages of The Washington Post to blast away at President Obama's cap-and-trade plan. Too bad she's firing away with blanks. Above, Palin on the campaign trail last year.Courtesy sskennel via FlickrThese criticisms, typically, come backed by well-reasoned arguments. The liberal critique of Waxman-Markey focuses on the questionable decision to give away emissions credits to polluters and concerns that the Agriculture Department, not the EPA, will review and regulate carbon offsets in the farming sector. Many conservatives, meanwhile, have argued that the best way to curb emissions and spur a clean-energy revolution is with a carbon tax, not a complicated cap-and-trade scheme.

So when the person John McCain once said knows more about energy policy than anyone else in America pens an op-ed for one of the nation's highest-regarded newspapers, it's time to pay attention and learn something.

Sarah Palin, the soon-to-be-ex-governor of Alaska, has an opinion piece (a screed, really) in Tuesday's Washington Post in which she shrilly blasts away at "President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan," calling it "an enormous threat" to the U.S. economy.

Juicy stuff. Ordinarily, we'd let David Roberts out of his cage to respond, but he's happily away on vacation. Joe Romm will surely be along in the morning with a strong piece tearing apart Palin's piece. [Yep, here's his piece.] But for now, here are some first thoughts from me:

Palin's thesis comes loaded with plenty of rhetoric and zero facts. It offers nothing more than assertions about the emissions reduction part of the bill, ignores the energy investment and green jobs provisions, blames "Washington bureaucrats" for hampering oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (not Congress, where elected lawmakers have repeatedly expressed the American public's desire to keep ANWR off limits), and fails to even take note of the underlying issue -- catastrophic climate change.

Couldn't Palin's ghostwriters have cribbed from any of the well-researched, highly technical criticisms produced by just about every conservative think tank in the land?

Grist's David Roberts and other contributors have answered every one of Palin's "points" in the past:

Palin says the bill would result in skyrocketing energy prices. Higher prices are surely likely, David noted last month, but not on the order of what Palin thinks.

Palin: "Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source."

See David's debate with clean-coal flack Joe Lucas. There's no such thing as clean coal, and even if the technology appears in 10-15 years as predicted, it will be so costly as to effectively raise energy prices substantially on the regular folk Palin claims to be defending.

Palin: "Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy."

See Kate Sheppard's piece from last summer. The oil shale pipe dream has been around since the 1970s. The fact is, the technology doesn't exist yet to extract it cost-effectively, and won't for many years (if ever). And extraction comes with a host of environmental problems.

As for the nuclear energy canard, the fact remains that most Americans don't want to live anywhere near a nuclear power plant or a storage facility for highly radioactive nuclear waste. France is a place where bureaucrats truly hold enormous power, and that explains in part why the central government was able to push nuclear so effectively. Thankfully, our American system is more democratic.

Palin: "We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter."

Governor, listen closely: oil is a commodity. Even if we increase domestic production, we'll still be held prisoner to Russia's and Saudi Arabia's ability to meet global demand -- demand being driven by China, India and many other developing nations.

Ironically, Palin concludes her piece by asking, "Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation? Yes, we can."

Yes, governor, we can accomplish that goal. And there are probably several ways of doing it. But each path requires thoughtful policymaking, not just hot air for hot air's sake.

--

UPDATE: Media Matters now has a quick debunking of Palin's op-ed. And so does The Atlantic and Huffington Post.

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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (from left), Senator Mark Begich, Congressman Don Young and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar arrive at a public forum meeting in Anchorage Tuesday to discuss Outer Continental Shelf development.Courtesy Alaska governor's officeSarah Palin seems to have discovered global warming, and she’s got just the thing to do about it.

Yesterday the Alaska governor said climate change is harming her state, but she insisted that expanding natural gas production is the best way to lessen the effects of global warming. She was speaking at an Anchorage hearing held by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who is holding several such meetings around the country to consider renewing oil and gas leases on the outer continental shelf.

“We Alaskans are living with the changes that you are observing in Washington,” the Republican governor said.  “The dramatic decreases in the extent of summer sea ice, increased coastal erosion, melting of permafrost, decrease in alpine glaciers and overall ecosystem changes are very real to us.”

She promoted Alaska’s vast natural gas reserves as a cleaner alternative to oil and coal and a realistic “transition” energy source while the country shifts to a low-carbon energy system.

“There is no way to achieve these goals in the next few decades without a dramatic increase in domestic natural gas and a strong effort to modestly increase domestic oil production,” she said. “Keeping Alaska’s OCS [outer continental shelf] lease sales, exploration, and development programs on schedule, especially in the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea, is critically important to this effort.

She wasn’t so much abandoning the “drill, baby, drill” mantra that came to define the McCain-Palin energy strategy in last fall’s election as she was offering a new rationale for it -- cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Palin stopped just short of explicitly saying she believes humans are causing changes to the climate.

“She didn’t say that directly. I think it’s implied … That was a significant step for her,” said Kate Troll, executive director of Alaska Conservation Voters.

Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, thought it was less significant.

“I don’t know if this signals an official change in her thinking,” she said. “But she is a pretty savvy politician and ‘maverick,’ and I think she sees the writing on the wall that there’s going to be some legislation and some administrative action on climate change, that this is something she’s going to need to address.”

In her comments [PDF] on Tuesday, Palin linked the desire of “many” to cut greenhouse gas emissions with the natural gas pipeline she has long hoped to build in her state.

“Many believe that in order to mitigate these long term and systematic changes it will require a national and global effort to decrease the release of human produced greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” she said. “However, simply waiting for low carbon emitting renewable capacity to be large enough will mean that it will be too late to meet the mitigation goals for reducing CO2 that will be required under most credible climate change models …

“Meeting these goals will require a dramatic increase, in the very near term, to preferred available fuels - including natural gas – that have a very low carbon footprint and that can be used within the existing energy infrastructure. These available fuels are required to supply the nation’s energy needs during the transition to green energy alternatives.”

The statement marks a shift from her position on the campaign trail last August, when she told the conservative magazine Newsmax: “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

Palin’s office did not immediately return requests for comment on whether the statements signaled a change in the governor's thinking. She continued to advocate for a natural gas pipeline connecting Alaska's reserves with the lower 48 states, for continued investment in the state's established gas developments, and for access to gas reserves in the Beaufort and Chuchki seas off Alaska’s northern coast. (The Anchorage Daily News has a good map of the state’s reserves.)

Troll said her conservation group supports the pipeline and the state’s current natural gas developments but opposes development in the fragile ecosystem of the Chuchki Sea. She said she approved of Palin proposing natural gas, a low-carbon fossil fuel alternative to coal and oil, as a temporary energy source on the road to a greener-energy economy.

“We have a lot of known reserves, and it could be an ideal bridge fuel for America,” Troll said. “Does the need for more natural gas justify us going into other high-risk areas? That’s the question that Salazar’s trying to answer.”

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This is a guest post by John Hocevar and Jeremy Jackson. Jeremy Jackson is the William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution. John Hocevar is a marine biologist and the director of Greenpeace’s oceans campaign.

If you like seafood, you’ve probably eaten Alaska pollock, the tender white fish used in most frozen fish sticks, McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and the imitation crab meat found in California rolls. But the pollock – the world’s largest food fishery – is on the verge of collapse.

The most recent data from the National Marine Fisheries Service show the pollock population approaching the lowest level ever recorded; since 2003, the population has declined from 8.5 million tons to 3 million tons. That’s bad news for fish eaters and fishermen alike, and really bad news for Alaska’s extraordinary ocean ecosystem.

Even as the pollock – and the wildlife that rely on them – have declined, the government has allowed overfishing to continue.  Incredibly, these steep declines do not even meet the government’s definition of overfished.

As a result, two of Alaska’s four pollock fisheries have been closed and a third is just a fraction of its former size.  Until recently, though, the strength of the Bering Sea pollock stock was sufficient to support a billion dollar industry and earn a “sustainable” rating from the Marine Stewardship Council.

But like economics, fisheries management involves too many variables and too much uncertainty for anyone to make precise predictions.  And, as with the economy, when large amounts of money are at stake, managers tend to downplay that uncertainty and hope for the best.

That’s exactly what happened to the Atlantic cod, the pollock’s close relative, and the previous holder of the title “world’s biggest food fishery.” For years, the Atlantic fish industry refused to heed the warning signs that cod was in serious trouble, and tighter regulation was needed.

When policy makers did finally act, in 1992, it was too late – and the fishery crashed to less than one percent of its former level. By 1994, the fishery, which had been active since at least the beginning of the 16th century, had to be closed. Suddenly, more than 40,000 people were out of work and the industry went begging to the government for a multi-billion dollar bailout.

Today, the North Pacific Fisheries Council seems to be repeating the cod tragedy.

Despite the warning signs, including several years of low juvenile survivorship, the Council continues to allow trawlers to kill the fish that lay the golden eggs.  Each winter, factory trawlers brave the stormy Bering Sea to target spawning pollock, killing huge numbers of pregnant females before they release their eggs, or roe. The roe fishery is lucrative but ecologically dangerous even in the best of times. At a time when the pollock population needs all the offspring it can produce – and global warming seems to be putting additional stress on the fishery - it’s just reckless. The Council members (mostly representatives of the fishing industry) persist in saying that we can trust the industry to police itself – and are increasingly sounding like the Alan Greenspans of the sea.

It's still theoretically possible that environmental conditions will allow for a season of epic pollock reproduction that will begin to re-build the stock. If we continue with business as usual,though, it’s more likely that the fishery will collapse, with devastating consequences for the wildlife and people of Alaska.

The next year or two may be our last chance to save the fishing industry from itself. The key will be in taking action before things reach the point of no return, as appears to have happened with cod.  Most immediately, the pollock catch needs to be cut significantly, and the roe fishery should be suspended.

Many of the measures necessary to save the pollock fishery are just as needed in other fisheries around the country that are also reeling from overfishing. Across our oceans, fish have nowhere to find refuge and replenish their population – which is why we need to move quickly to establish a network of no-take marine reserves.

Until we move from simply managing fisheries in a vacuum to protecting the ecosystems that sustain them, fisheries managers will continue to be surprised by one economic and ecological disaster after another – and taxpayers could find themselves on the hook for yet another multi-billion dollar bailout.

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The Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound, March 1989.

Tuesday marks 20 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped nearly 11 million of gallons of crude oil into Alaskan waters, resulting in the most severe impacts on the environment of any spill anywhere. I was there and will attest to the graveness of the situation then, and now -- my memories of that day are graphic.  I boarded the tanker a few hours after the spill began to enforce clean-up standards.  The pungent, toxic smell of the oil is still fresh in my memory today.

The spill eventually devastated hundreds of miles of coastline, damaged ocean ecosystems and community resources, and distressed the local economy by closing commercial fisheries and hampering tourism.  Though 20 years have passed, 16,000 gallons of oil remain in the water and three animal species still have not recovered. 

As Congress and the White House continue a national debate on offshore oil drilling, we still need to learn our lessons from the largest oil spill in U.S. waters.  According to a report by the U.S. Coast Guard, six major and five medium spills totaling more than 9 million gallons resulted from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many of the world's 10,000 oil tankers still do not have safer double hulls to help prevent catastrophic spills.

We must take three steps to protect our ocean:

First, we must use faster, cheaper, safer energy options to solve the oil crisis, cut individual energy bills, and quickly reduce America's dependence on fossil fuels.

Second, we need a comprehensive, conservation-centered plan to manage the many competing energy and industrial uses of our ocean, which are impairing its sustainability and leading to coastal sprawl, just as our land has urban sprawl.

Third, it is time to create an ocean investment fund that sets aside revenue generated from ocean industry uses to pay for activities and projects that maintain and restore marine ecosystem health.

The Exxon Valdez spill is a prime example of the threats posed to our ocean from offshore oil drilling and transportation of oil. We must be particularly careful in vulnerable environments like the Arctic. In light of the tremendous and rapid changes to the Arctic and its seas due to global climate change, we need a "time out" on these activities until we have the information we need to protect marine life and coastal communities. Currently, no capacity is in place to handle accidents and oil spills in the Arctic's ice-filled seas.

Nearly a generation after the Exxon Valdez disaster, our addiction to oil still poses many threats to coastal communities, marine wildlife, the economy, and our ocean -- the life-support system of our planet. Now is the time to act in order to make no-regrets choices.

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George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

Al Franken (D-Minn.)

Shell Oil's plans to drill in Alaska's Beaufort Sea have been shot down by a federal appeals court. The Minerals Management Service failed to take a "hard look" at the impact of drilling on whales and subsistence hunters, the court ruled, and there remain "substantial questions as to whether [the plan] may cause significant harm to the people and wildlife of the ... region." MMS must start from scratch with a new environmental review before the project can move forward.

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Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate and a recently convicted felon, has officially lost his reelection bid to Democrat Mark Begich. Stevens has long been a thorn in the side to environmentalists, most notably for leading the charge to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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Some 2 million acres near Alaska's Bristol Bay will be opened to development for the first time under a plan released Friday by the Bureau of Land Management. The agency's decision to throw the door open for mining and drilling in the area, which is home to the world's largest sockeye salmon run, is opposed by environmentalists, Native Alaskans, and commercial fisherfolk.

sources:

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There's enough natural gas frozen 2,000 feet below the permafrost on Alaska's icy North Slope to heat 100 million homes for up to a decade, the U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday. Look alive, Palin pipeline!

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Congress is expected to vote this month on a potentially precedent-setting land swap that would clear the way for a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Alaska. Locals say the road's main purpose would be to help evacuate sick people during bad weather, but environmentalists and others suspect the move is an attempt to lay the groundwork for oil and gas development in the area.

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