The most critical environmental questions of our time may come down to who wins in the election tomorrow. Will you help save our state—and our planet? This week in CIB:
Climate Change Update:Last Best Chance
Making the right choices in this year’s national elections presents our last best chance to save our planet.
We’re being warned by increasing numbers of scientists and science institutions, backed by rising stacks of alarming data, that time is running out for us to make the decisions and pursue the policies necessary to limit global warming and head off catastrophic levels of climate change. We cannot afford to lose the progress begun in that direction under the Obama Administration, or lose another decade’s worth of action time to the climate deniers. Our chance to shape our future is now.
Here’s the difference on climate change between a Clinton presidency and a Trump presidency:
Hillary Clinton has pledged to implement the Obama Clean Power Plan limitations on carbon emissions from power generation. Donald Trump would revoke them.
Clinton supports implementing the Paris Agreement’s international accord to reduce carbon emissions and limit global warming. Trump would rip it up.
Clinton pledges specific, ambitious efforts to expand clean energy production from solar and wind, including a half-billion more solar electric panels and improving electric transmission infrastructure to distribute the new power from solar and wind. Trump supports expanding use of coal and oil, including offshore drilling.
Clinton will appoint Supreme Court justices who will uphold the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to address the pollutants accelerating climate change. Trump has pledged to appoint justices like the late Antonin Scalia, who was key to Court decisions delaying or restricting EPA rules in this and other environmental matters.
Clinton emphasizes that she believes in the science warning of global climate change and its human causation factors. Trump calls climate change a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese.
These and other specific pro-environment points in her record and policy stances led the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) to endorse Hillary Clinton for president. “As a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton has made the need to grow a sustainable, clean energy economy and tackling climate change a major part of her conversation with voters,” said Carol M. Browner, Board Chair of LCV, former EPA Administrator and Director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy under President Obama. “With a history of leadership on the international stage and a commitment to protecting public health, Hillary Clinton is the leader we need to meet the climate crisis head-on.”
In stark contrast, LCV has placed Donald Trump at the head of its 2016 “Dirty Dozen” list.
Control of Congress–and especially the U.S. Senate—is also on the line this week. Among other key factors, the ability of a president to appoint members of the federal judiciary (including the Supreme Court) is limited by the Senate’s willingness to consider and confirm them. Under its current leadership, the Senate has refused to even consider President Obama’s most recent nominee to the Court.
In fact, North Carolina’s current senior Senator, Richard Burr, was just last week caught bragging on tape about his record of blocking Obama appointments to the U.S. District Court in North Carolina. In the same conversation, he pledged to block any Supreme Court appointments by a President Clinton.
This moment of recorded candor by Senator Burr underscores the importance of replacing him with a new Senator from North Carolina who will support pro-environment policies. The national League of Conservation Voters has endorsed Deborah Ross as that candidate.
Too many of our friends and family seem to have adopted the cynical viewpoint that this election has become merely a choice between evils—or even that the choice does not matter. Please help to spread the facts: For the future of our planet and all the generations to come that will depend on a healthy environment, the choices are bright and clear.
Executive Watch: The Environmental Case to Replace Pat McCrory
At the state level in North Carolina, the choice may be less globally critical, but it is just as clear. Consider these factors:
Incumbent Governor Pat McCrory has led our state government in attempting to block the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Challenger Roy Cooper, the state’s independently elected Attorney General, has refused to support that lawsuit.
McCrory has appointed leaders of the critical Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), first John Skvarla and then Donald van der Vaart, who have shaped its policy approach as one of a “customer” (polluter) friendly direction in preference to vigorous enforcement of water and air pollution permits and controls. Van der Vaart also has championed increased reliance on nuclear and fossil fuel sources over renewable energy.
McCrory, a career Duke Energy employee prior to his election as governor in 2012, has comprehensively favored his former employer in disputes over coal ash spills and cleanup requirements, including signing legislation to limit Duke’s coal ash cleanup obligations.
McCrory appears to have been directly involved in his administration’s efforts to discredit and undermine DEQ scientists who warned of the dangers to public health from well water contamination that was believed to have been associated with coal ash pollution.
McCrory has been a consistent and enthusiastic cheerleader for oil and gas drilling off the sensitive North Carolina coast, as well as for aggressive (and even state-financed) exploration and exploitation of natural gas from fracking.
McCrory has signed major anti-environmental legislation like the “Polluter Protection Act.”
McCrory overall earned an “F” score for his past year’s environmental actions.
For these reasons, and because of Cooper’s own strong pro-environment record, NCLCV’s Conservation PAC has endorsed McCrory’s challenger, Roy Cooper. We encourage our supporters to pass on to your friends and colleagues the comprehensive environmental case for replacing Pat McCrory as governor.
Judicial Watch: Fair Districts Are On The Ballot
One far lower-profile election at the state level in North Carolina could end up making an almost equally critical impact on our state’s long-term direction on policy (including environmental policy). That’s the contest for the single seat at stake this year on the N.C. Supreme Court.
Incumbent Associate Justice Bob Edmunds is being challenged for his seat by experienced Superior Court Judge Mike Morgan. Although the contest is technically non-partisan, the state Republican Party has lined up behind Edmunds, and the state Democratic Party behind Morgan. The NC Chamber of Commerce has undertaken substantial advertising expenditures in support of Edmunds. Major contributors to Morgan include environmental advocates like Thomas Steyer of San Francisco. In addition, millions of dollars in political ‘dark money’ has poured into the state in ‘independent’ advertising campaigns attacking and defending Edmunds.
Public interest groups including the Sierra Club’s North Carolina Chapter have endorsed the challenger, Judge Morgan, and are taking a very close interest in this contest.
Why such a focus? The most important single factor is the prospect for a change in this seat to flip the majority on the NC Supreme Court from Republicans inclined to defer to the state legislature’s highly gerrymandered district lines, to Democrats inclined to take a more critical view of such district plans.
From both a pro-environment policy position, and a more policy-neutral ‘good government’ position, the predominance of non-competitive districts for both state legislature and Congress in North Carolina has been harmful. When the nominee of one or the other major party in a district knows that they are essentially politically invulnerable in the general election, it becomes far more difficult for public/constituent opinion to impact his or her positions. Unfortunately, that situation has become the norm in most North Carolina legislative districts. That makes it a particularly important problem to correct.
NCLCV has not usually made endorsements in judicial contests, but CIB always encourages concerned voters to carefully weigh their choices in these important races.
Around the State: Green Transportation At Stake in Wake County
How would you a like a chance to vote directly in support of greener transportation alternatives to the drive-everywhere, all-the-time, dreary situation in most of our state? If you’re voting in Wake County this fall, you do.
Wake transportation planners and smart-growth community and environmental advocates have put together an ambitious but realistic plan that would put practical transit alternatives within easy reach of most Wake residents. Like all good plans, however, it requires support to implement.
That’s where the public vote in this election comes into play. If voters approve a small increment to the local sales tax (which excludes groceries, medicines and housing), then the funding will be there to create a comprehensive green transportation system for Wake County. Details on the plan and the referendum can be found here.
Clean environment and environmental justice advocates around North Carolina will be watching the outcome of this very important local vote this Tuesday.
Campaign Watch: NCLCV Endorsements
The comprehensive updated list of NCLCV’s recommendations for state and legislative elections this year is available to help in your decisions regarding how to cast your votes with the environment and public health in mind. You can find it here. It includes statewide endorsements of Roy Cooper for governor, Josh Stein for attorney general, and Dan Blue III for state treasurer.
And finally: You say you’ve already voted? Good for you!
Now what? Now you have time to help put your thumb on the scale for environmental justice and sanity by helping other good citizens turn out to vote for good environmental candidates.
You can make phone calls. Go door to door. Share rides to the polls. Or help to monitor the polls and make sure no one is illegally suppressed from exercising his or her right to vote. Take NCLCV’s pledge to go beyond voting in this election.
You can contact the county office of the political party or candidate of your choice. Or, you can contact the regional office of nonpartisan Democracy North Carolina.
Don’t spend election day worrying about the outcome. Get out and help shape the outcome. The future of our planet and our grandchildren depends on you!
That’s our report for this week.
