A news analysis confirms that Richard Burr is deep in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, plus more news, this week in CIB:

Campaign Watch: Burr Found “Wed to the Energy Industry”; LCV Names Burr to Dirty Dozen

Senator Richard Burr has received nearly $1.7 million in campaign contributions from individuals and committees associated with the coal, oil and gas, nuclear, and electric utility industries since he was first elected to Congress in 1994. That’s the top-line finding of research for an analysis story published last week by McClatchy DC media.

In return, he has been a reliable ally of the fossil fuel energy industry in the U.S. House and Senate for over 20 years. For example, the National Mining Association says that Burr has sided with every one of its positions on the 18 key votes it has tracked this session in the Senate. Craig Holman of the public interest group Public Citizen’s Congress Watch says that this record of mutual support shows that Burr is “wed to the energy industry” and that fossil fuel and nuclear interests “have made sure that he is going to feel obligated.” Coal industry sources alone have contributed $88,000 to Burr’s re-election campaign since last year.

The McClatchy analysis confirms that Burr “has persistently voted for legislation to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating power plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.”

Meanwhile, Burr’s scores on the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) annual Congressional scorecards have consistently been poor. Burr’s 2015 National Environmental Scorecard rating was 4% (out of a possible 100), and his lifetime rating was not much better at 7%. The LCV Action Fund announced earlier this year its endorsement of Burr’s challenger for his Senate seat, Deborah Ross.

Given Burr’s documented love affair with fossil fuel cash, it’s no wonder to see him moving up on environmentalists list of officials we’d most like to replace. On Friday, LCV named Richard Burr to its 2016 “Dirty Dozen” list of members of Congress targeted for campaigns to defeat them.

“Richard Burr earned his place on the Dirty Dozen because he is so far outside the mainstream – he votes in lock-step with his Big Polluter allies, who have contributed nearly $1.7 million to prop up his campaigns, and ignores the health and climate impacts in North Carolina,” said LCV National Campaigns Director Clay Schroers. “The simple fact is that Burr has an extreme environmental agenda straight from the polluter playbook; he wants to abolish the EPA, roll back protections for North Carolinians’ clean air and water, and denies the reality of climate change.”

On the same day, the LCV Victory Fund released an “Interested Parties” memo detailing Burr’s “awful environmental record.”

Burr’s newly awarded position on LCV’s “Dirty Dozen” list is also related to the tightening state of his re-election contest. Challenger Deborah Ross has actually passed him in some recent polls. That’s relevant since, as a practical matter, there are always more than a dozen members of Congress with poor voting records who environmentalists would like to see replaced. Like most other advocacy organizations, LCV prefers to direct its limited resources toward fights it sees as winnable.

LCV’s record of picking winnable fights has been pretty good. In 2012, the most recent presidential cycle, 11 of the 12 designated “Dirty Dozen” candidates lost. In 2014, seven of the 12 were defeated.

Neutral political analysts have gradually been moving the NC Senate contest up in the rankings of Senate seats most likely to change hands this fall. It went from out of the top ten to #9, then #7, and most recently, the Burr-Ross contest stands at number 5 on some lists. The winner of this contest could make the difference between a pro- and an anti-environmental majority in the U.S. Senate next year.

Judicial Watch: Red Wold Reprieve

Red wolves won a critical, if possibly temporary, victory in federal court last week. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle issued a preliminary injunction stopping the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) from moving ahead with a plan to capture most of the wolves now living in the wild in an area of eastern North Carolina.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed by wildlife conservation advocates seeking to halt implementation of the plan by USFWS. The federal wildlife agency announced recently that it intended to pull back from the decades-old attempt to re-establish a wild population of the endangered wolf species in part of its historic range in coastal North Carolina. The agency said it would leave only a much-reduced number of wolves free to roam in one county.

In his ruling granting the injunction against the USFWS plan, Judge Boyle said the plan would “fail to adequately provide for the protection of red wolves and may in fact jeopardize the population’s survival in the wild.”

The case against the USFWS plan was brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of the Red Wolf Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Animal Welfare Institute. SELC attorney Sierra Weaver told the press, “This is a great day for red wolves and for anyone who loves nature in eastern North Carolina. The court was clear that it’s the [USFWS]’s job to conserve this endangered species, not drive it to extinction. The agency cannot simply abandon that responsibility.”

Climate Change Update: Johnson’s Policies Would Hasten Catastrophe

For those of us who follow the policies of politics more closely than the personalities, it’s been one the hair-tearing frustrations of campaign 2016. Why on earth would so many millennials—who rightly view action on climate change as a bedrock demand to their would-be leaders—be seriously considering a presidential candidate who favors scrapping all public efforts to address that crisis?

Yet that is the case with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson.

A recent article in Mother Jones explores Johnson’s history of statements and stances hostile to action to deal with climate change. Probably his most jaw-dropping statement came in 2011 (and which he has since repeated), that “In billions of years, the sun is going to actually grow and encompass the Earth, right? So global warming is in our future.”

Right, Gary. By the same reasoning, concern about the state of our air, water, wildlife, children’s health, or anything else is equally futile—so why bother with any of that?

On a more down-to-earth basis, the article explores Johnson’s more immediate opposition to either regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions or a carbon tax to use his much-admired “market forces” to control them. According to him, none of that will work anyway and most of it is against his principles, so we should forget about it.

Further, Johnson’s position against action on climate change is not an aberration. It fits exactly the philosophy which he and his Libertarian Party represent: opposition to all public endeavors to regulate pollution, protect land and wildlife, or maintain public health. Under the Libertarian platform and doctrine, there would be no national or state parks, forests, or wilderness areas; no laws against dumping pollution into the water or air; and no rules governing food or drug safety.

Libertarian Party doctrine says: So you think that Duke Energy’s coal ash toxins have poisoned your water? Fine, hire a team of lawyers and toxicologists (at your own expense) and take megacorporation Duke to court. You may get an answer in a few years. In the meantime, buy your own water or move. Good luck!

Most environmental advocates consider the 2016 presidential election to be a stark and critical choice between two potential winning nominees who could not be further apart on climate change: Donald Trump, who considers climate change a “hoax” and would aggressively boost coal and oil production (including offshore drilling), and Hillary Clinton, who has pledged to maintain and advance climate action work begun under President Obama, and press especially hard for the deployment of more solar energy. That’s part of the basis for the endorsement of Clinton’s candidacy by national groups including the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund.

These citizen groups know that keeping an advocate for action on climate change in the White House is critical to the future of our planet and humanity. Votes for a third-party candidate who cannot win and who even denies the need to act on the climate crisis are at best thrown away. At worst they would help to catapult a climate catastrophe into the Oval Office.

Around the States: Clean Air Group Endorses Wake Transit Vote

Medical Advocates for Healthy Air (MAHA), an initiative of the larger group Clean Air Carolina, has announced its support for the Wake County transit referendum, which will appear on Wake voters’ ballots in this election.

The referendum would fund a plan to substantially increase public transit options in Wake County. In its announcement, MAHA says, “The health co-benefits of transit reach beyond emissions exposure. Daily walks to transit stops ward off obesity and depression. Reducing congestion also reduces greenhouse gasses that cause climate change. In addition, transit options also make it easier for people who can’t afford to own a car – and the $9000 per year that the Federal Highway Administration estimates we spend to fuel, license and maintain one – to get to work, school and health services.”

The Wake transit improvement plan includes increasing traditional bus service, providing “bus rapid transit” with dedicated lanes and stops to transport riders between Raleigh and smaller municipalities, and putting commuter rail on existing track to Durham. The plan is intended to place a transit stop within a half-mile of 50% of the homes and 70% of the jobs in Wake County.

More details about the need for transit and its benefits, the proposed plan, its supporting coalition, and the referendum vote are available here.

That’s our report for this week.