The Republican field for U.S. Senate declared its hostility toward action to address climate change, plus NCLCV announces its Green Tie winners and other news, this week in CIB:
Campaign Watch: Red Light on Climate Change
The entire field at last week’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate debates answered with a single voice on the issue of climate change. Each candidate denied that ongoing human-influenced climate change is a proven fact – and none supported acting to address the problem.
Four candidates seeking the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent U.S. Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) participated in the debates. These were the four candidates who have polled at 10% or more in voter support for the primary: Greg Brannon, Heather Grant, Mark Harris and Thom Tillis. (Four other candidates who have filed for the GOP nomination have never broken out of single digits in a poll, and were not invited to the televised debates held at Davidson College and in Raleigh.)
On climate change, the moderator in the first debate asked the candidates whether they believed that climate change is a “proven fact”. Each of the four answered flatly “no”.
At the second debate, sponsored by WRAL-TV in Raleigh the following night, the moderator pressed for more comment. There, presumed frontrunner Tillis, currently Speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives, asserted that claims of human-caused climate change were “false science”. Cary obstetrician and “tea party” favorite Greg Brannon claimed that humans were not a factor in global warming: “The literature is so clear on this.” Harris and Grant were similarly dismissive. (McLatchy Tribune coverage, 4/24/14.)
These claims by the Republican field led the WRAL Fact Check feature to give Tillis and Brannon a “red light” ruling on their responses to this question. (On the WRAL Fact Check scale, a “red light” means “The speaker in question either displayed a willful disregard for the truth, made an accusation without a basis in fact or has gotten their math very wrong.”) In its “red light” ruling, WRAL cites NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) conclusions: “Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.” More here.
See the NASA summary of international scientific consensus on climate change science here.
In other words, all of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in North Carolina are either woefully ignorant or lying in the service of a political agenda on the question of climate change.
Incumbent Sen. Hagan acknowledges the reality of human-influenced global climate change and supports federal action to address the problem.
For information and examples of how ongoing climate change appears already to be adversely impacting North Carolina,see here.
Legislative Watch: NCLCV Announces Green Tie Winners
NCLCV this week announced the 2014 winners of its Green Tie Awards for outstanding pro-conservation leadership by North Carolina legislators. This year’s awards recognize the leadership of six State Senators and nine State Representatives.
The 2014 Green Tie Award winners are:
- Senator of the Year: Angela Bryant
- Representative of the Year: Larry Hall
- 2014 Rising Stars (recognizing new voices at the General Assembly who make the environment a cause they champion): Senators Valerie Foushee and Mike Woodard; Representatives Nathan Baskerville, Carla Cunningham, George Graham, Duane Hall, Yvonne Lewis Holley, Bobbie Richardson, and Evelyn Terry.
- The Joes (named in honor of former House Speaker Joe Hackney, this award recognizes environmental champions who will not be returning to the next General Assembly session): Senators Ellie Kinnaird, Dan Clodfelter, and (posthumously) Martin Nesbitt.
The Green Tie Awards Dinner will be held Tuesday, May 27, in Raleigh. For full details (including ticket information), see here.
Washington Watch: Defining the “Waters”
As reported in the March 31 CIB, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers (COE) recently released their long-awaited rule to clarify the definition of “waters of the United States”. This basic definition determines what waters and wetlands are protected from discharge of fill materials and pollutants under the federal Clean Water Act.
For decades, special interests including some developers have fought to narrow the scope of areas protected under the Clean Water Act. If they succeed, great areas of key habitat and pollution-filtering wetlands and small streams will be vulnerable to unchecked destruction. Controversial U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 muddied long-standing definitions of “waters”, requiring ultimately that the EPA and COE issue a new rule clarifying the questions that were unsettled by the court.
Summaries and details about the proposed new rule can be found on the EPA’s website here.
Clean water protection experts nationwide have praised the EPA/COE’s new rule proposal as necessary to protect our waters. They urge the public to take advantage of the comment period now open to signal support for the rule and for protecting our waters. More here.
The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on April 21, and the public comment period will be open until July 21. Comments can be submitted online here.
A model comment prepared by the National Wildlife Federation can be seen here.
Education & Resources: Following the Money at the State Level
The National Institute on Money in State Politics tracks the trail of financial influence on state elections – collecting, analyzing, and reporting on the publicly available reports of contributions to campaigns and candidates at the state (and state district) level.
The Institute recently did a report on contributions from one “name in the news” – Duke Energy. It tracked contributions from Duke PACs and executives 2000-2012 to the campaigns of six state governors now in office. The study found that $98,000 in such contributions went to current N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory – more than three times the total contributions made to the other five governors combined. See more details here.
Conservationists: Primary Voting Is Underway
Early voting for the May 6 North Carolina primary elections opened April 24, and will continue to May 3. Many key contests are decided in the primaries, where each individual’s vote can count for more, since so many fewer voters participate in primaries than in general elections.
Important contests now are being decided at the state, district, and local levels around the state. These include a number of contests in which NCLCV has made primary endorsements.
NCLCV urges all its members and supporters to vote, and to vote with the environment in mind. Take the pledge to be a conservation voter this year here.
That’s our report for this week.
