Last night, Senator Murkowski was treated to a fundraiser by lobbyists for the Nuclear Energy Institute, Duke Energy and Peabody Coal. Political Party Time has the details:

Host Alex Flint lobbies for the Nuclear Energy Institute, whose PAC has given her $5,000 since 2008. Beverly K. Marshall lobbies for Duke Energy, which is based in North Carolina, and has given the senator $24,050 over the course of her career. David Russell represents a number of clients for Bryan Cave LLP, including Peabody Energy, a coal company based in St. Louis,  Mo. Peabody’s PAC has given her $3,000 since 2008.

Here is a screenshot of the invitation, which was distributed by the NRSC:

Political Party Time also made some interesting general observations about Senator Murkowski’s fundraising habits:

Murkowski gets more campaign cash from the energy and natural resources sector than any other–more than $1 million over the course of her career. Seventy-three percent of her campaign cash comes from sources out of state.

Senator Murkowski was met outside the fundraiser by a group of student protesters. Rather than taking the time to engage with the concerned youth, she quickly brushed past them into the building. Watch here:

Just 19 hours later, today at 2:00, Senator Murkowski will do the bidding of those who funneled money to her campaign last night. On a conference call with Chamber of Commerce members Senator Murkowski will give an overview of the EPA’s plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and her efforts to stop those plans. Here is how the Chamber of Commerce describes the call:

The U.S. Chamber is pleased to announce that we will hold a special member conference call with United States Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and we want you to be a part of this timely discussion about climate change and legislation in Congress to deal with EPA’s actions to regulate greenhouse gases on the afternoon of Thursday, February 25. Join in this worthwhile opportunity to hear an overview of the EPA’s move toward regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, its burdensome affects on business, and Congress’ response to the move. Register now to receive the dial-in number.

Senator Murkowski has introduced bipartisan legislation to allow time for Congress to address the climate change issue and prevent EPA from moving forward with a regulatory scheme to regulate greenhouse gases under the ill-suited framework of the Clean Air Act. On January 14, the first major step of that process–an EPA final rule concluding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare–took effect, and with it the obligation to move forward with what could easily become the most expensive and intrusive set of regulations in history. The implementation of these rules will have a significant impact on the economy and small businesses.

This is one of those all-too-often instances in Washington where a direct connection can be drawn between a candidate’s fundraising and their anti-progressive legislative agenda. Polluting corporations don’t funnel millions of dollars to candidates out of the goodness of their hearts. They do so with an expectation that they’ll get something in return, and Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski never disappoints on that front.

Indeed, Senator Murkowski’s extremely close ties to oil, gas and coal industry lobbyists have caused some to speculate that she is romantically involved with some of them:

When I moved from Alaska to Washington, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find someone who was right for me. The first couple of years were tough — I met a lot of potential matches but couldn’t find the perfect one. My dad had lived in DC for years and had a lot of success with PolluterHarmony, so I decided to try it.

When I saw Jeff’s profile, I couldn’t believe I found a lobbyist with so much money to contribute to my re-election campaigns and so many big coal and utility industry clients. Arch Coal, Southern Company, Edison Electric… I thought “He’s just what I’m looking for!” We instantly clicked — in our first phone conversation, he told me he could bundle $10,000 by our first date. We met in person a week later, and he had the check in hand.

In order to make sure Washington lobbyists know that Senator Murkowski’s votes and legislative efforts are up for sale to the highest bidder, PolluterWatch.com is now running ads on Politico:

And to be fair to Alaska residents who may also be interested to know about the unscrupulous behavior of their senior Senator, ads are also running on the websites of Alaska TV stations:

Despite intimations to the contrary, Senator Murkowski is far too beholden to corporate interests to take the true interests of her state seriously. While Alaska is literally melting, Murkowski’s spokesman is busy attacking bloggers for asking hard questions. While her state’s infrastructure suffers from the impacts of climate change, Murkowski lets corporate lobbyists write legislation for her. And while a bipartisan group of Senators works to find consensus on climate legislation, Senator Murkowski does everything in her power to keep her funders happy by thwarting progress at every turn.

Visit NoDirtyAirAct.com for the latest on Senator Murkowski’s efforts to the bidding of her energy industry lobbying pals by severely weakening the Clean Air Act.

Via Coal Tattoo, the Associated Press:

Utility company FirstEnergy said Thursday that it is buying rival Allegheny Energy for about $4.7 billion in stock in a deal that will create one of the nation’s largest power companies with customers from Ohio to New York.

The combined company will have about $16 billion in annual revenue and $1.4 billion in profit and serve more than 6 million customers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and West Virginia.

Here is the press release:

2010-02-11 FirstEnergy and Allegheny Energy To Combine –

In the wake of yesterday’s explosion at a natural gas plant in Connecticut, Caroline Howe at Its Getting Hot in Here makes a good point:

Fossil fuels are not safe. They are not safe for our planet, they are not safe for our communities, and they are not safe for the workers inside of their power plants. This is not the first power plant explosion, this will not be the last. It is time for America to commit to a clean and safe energy economy – where our friends and neighbors can work in green jobs that give good wages and safe working environments. My heart and prayers are with the workers at the Kleen Energy Plant and with their families — and with the future of our nation to not face such a tragedy again.

Greenhouse gas emissions aside, here are a few recent environmental problems and public health concerns associated with generating electricity from coal, nuclear and natural gas:

• Yesterday — Middletown Power Plant Explosion Caused By Gas Leak, Officials Say: “Early reports were that a natural gas leak could have caused a devastating explosion Sunday morning that killed two and injured as many as a dozen more at a power plant being built south of the city on the Connecticut River.”
• Last week — Radiation Levels Spike Near Vt. Nuke Plant; Leak Source Not Yet Found: “Levels of radioactive tritium mushroomed Thursday in a new monitoring well at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, an indication the leak was coming from water that runs through the reactor itself, according to the Department of Health.  These are very high concentrations,” said William Irwin, radiological health chief for the Department of Health, who was at the reactor Thursday. “We’re not dealing with a minor system. It’s an important source that needs to be quickly found.”
• Last week — The EPA released “engineering assessments of 40 more coal ash impoundments showing they have the ‘high’ or ’significant’ potential to cause loss of human life, environmental damage, or damage to infrastructure.”
• 9 months ago — 8 Firefighters, 1 Gas Employee Burned In Natural Gas Explosion: “Eight firefighters and a gas company worker were injured in a natural gas explosion at a strip mall in Forestville, Maryland on Thursday afternoon. Despite being caught in the violent explosion, only two of the injured remain hospitalized.”
• 13 months ago — TVA spilled 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash in Eastern Tennessee. “A test of river water near the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, which can cause birth defects and nervous and reproductive system disorders”
• Natural gas drilling has contaminated the water in several states.
• Coal mining releases methane, carbon monoxide, soot, copper lead and mercury at levels known to pose risks to human health.

And here are some recent environmental problems and public health concerns associated with generating electricity from solar, wind and geothermal:

• …
• …
• Actually, there are no environmental problems or public health concerns associated with generating electricity from wind, solar and geothermal sources.

Just something to keep in mind when you hear people talk about ‘cleaner burning natural gas,’ ‘clean coal,’ and ’safe nuclear power.’

Update — Senator Lautenberg has questions:

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said Monday that a fatal explosion at an unfinished natural gas-fired power plant in Connecticut over the weekend underscores safety concerns about a proposed natural gas pipeline in New Jersey.

An explosion Sunday at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown, Connecticut killed at least five workers.

“This tragic incident reminds us that natural gas, while cleaner burning than other fossil fuels, comes with safety risks. The explosion raises a red flag about the construction of a natural gas line that would run through New Jersey primarily for the benefit of New York,” Lautenberg said in a prepared statement.

So much for eliminating useless and wasteful programs:

For decades, the coal industry has supported quality high-paying jobs for American workers, and coal has provided an important domestic source of reliable, affordable energy. At the same time, coal-fired power plants are the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and coal accounts for 40 percent of global emissions. Charting a path toward clean coal is essential to achieving my Administration’s goals of providing clean energy, supporting American jobs, and reducing emissions of carbon pollution. Rapid commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage (CCS), will help position the United States as a leader in the global clean energy race.

…

To further this work and develop a comprehensive and coordinated Federal strategy to speed the commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies, I hereby establish an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage (Task Force). You shall each designate a senior official from your respective agency to serve on the Task Force, which shall be Co Chaired by the designees from the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

There is nothing clean about coal. Aside from burning wood or feces, it is literally the most polluting, most dangerous energy source known to man. If the president wanted people to take his fiscal conservatism seriously he wouldn’t pump billions of dollars into the pet project of the coal industry. Further, every dollar spent doing the coal industry’s research into the myth of ‘clean coal’ is a dollar that could have been invested in clean energy research. Obama and his team are making some efforts to speed up the transition to a clean energy economy, while at the same time making other efforts to slow that transition down. It is counterproductive and wasteful, and I’m sure plenty of people in the administration know better. More pandering we can believe in, I guess.

Tommaso Boggia at Funding Our Future writes:

During the CitizenTube State of the Union Q & A discussion, President Obama severely dodged a question submitted by young activists about his support of dirty energy.His answer is unwise, and deceitful. I hate to say this about the President that has done more to invest in a clean energy economy than anyone before him (not a hard accomplishment since W, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Carter were the only presidents in office since clean energy became an issue), but young people are tired of being lied to by the White House and congress.

He continues:

Despite the evidence and public support, President Obama’s comments disregarded the potential of renewable energy. Instead, he championed dangerous and dirty alternatives like Carbon Capture and Sequestration (for some incomprehensible President Obama keeps on calling it ‘clean coal’) and nuclear energy even though many studies question their ability to quickly and cheaply reduce our emissions. CCS is extremely inefficient, forcing us to dig up and burn much more coal per unit of energy produced (that certainly won’t help our friends in West Virginia fighting to protect their mountains). Nuclear energy consumes large amounts of fresh water, already a precious resource that will become even more rare as the climate warms up.Is President Obama’s support for these dirty forms of energy just a gimmick to schmooze voters?

It is becoming increasingly clear, to me at least, that President Obama truly embraces the Republican mantra of ‘all of the above’ as an energy policy. One problem: ‘all of the above’ is a catchphrase, not a plan for sustainably powering our economy for decades into the future. Acknowledging that there is legitimate role for coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas in our energy mix is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Even with the right policies and investments it will take decades to alter our energy mix to a somewhat-sustainable balance. But when President Obama uses his rhetorical gifts to sing the praises of dirty energy — and encourages increased oil/gas drilling and loan guarantees for constructing new nuclear power plants — he is moving our energy mix in the wrong direction and making the difficult transition to a low-carbon economy more lengthy and expensive.

You can watch the question and answer session here at the 31:38 mark:

The flawed conventional wisdom is that increased GDP is associated with access to more and cheaper energy. This is not necessarily the case, as the chart below shows (via Yglesias):

Energy intensity is the amount of energy used per unit of activity. Decreasing energy intensity, mainly through energy efficiency, is the most direct path to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. While getting coal-fired power plants off the grid by driving the price of renewable sources down is one way to approach the problem, it isn’t the only way.

President Obama spoke today at the GOP House Issues Conference. After his remarks, he took questions from several Republican members of Congress. In response to a question from Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the president expanded on his praise of polluting energy sources in this week’s State of the Union Address.

On coal, President Obama said:

“For example, nobody has been a bigger promoter of clean coal technology than I am. Testament to that, I ended up being in a whole bunch of advertisements that you guys saw all the time about investing in ways for us to burn coal more cleanly.”

“We can’t operate the coal industry in the United States as if we’re still in the 1920s or the 1930s or the 1950s. We’ve got to be thinking what does that industry look like in the next hundred years. And it’s going to be different. And that means there’s going to be some transition. And that’s where I think a well-thought-through policy of incentivizing the new while recognizing that there’s going to be a transition process — and we’re not just suddenly putting the old out of business right away — that has to be something that both Republicans and Democrats should be able to embrace.”

On nuclear, President Obama said:

“I’ve said that I’m a promoter of nuclear energy, something that I think over the last three decades has been subject to a lot of partisan wrangling and ideological wrangling. I don’t think it makes sense.”

On energy policy in general, President Obama said:

“So if you look at the ideas that this caucus has, again with respect to energy, I’m for a lot of what you said you are for.”

The full exchange is below.

Update — JW Randolph at the Front Porch blog has the video.

Read the rest of this entry »

Move On:

Last night over 10,000 MoveOn members participated in our first real-time dial test of the President’s State of the Union Speech. Below is a chart showing their reactions to President Obama’s speech, with the points of strongest approval and disapproval highlighted:

Brad Johnson has much more on this.

Associated Press:

A day after meeting with environmentalists concerned about surface mining, Gov. Joe Manchin asked the Legislature to approve a symbolic resolution affirming that coal is still king in West Virginia.

Resolutions sought by Manchin were introduced Tuesday in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate.

They condemn federal legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions with so-called ”cap and trade” programs, and express support for investment in new energy industry technologies aimed at reducing pollution from coal.

Here is the text of the resolution:

Expressing the will of the Legislature to oppose the adoption of a national cap and trade program for carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions that is unduly burdensome to the State of West Virginia and to support measures that encourage investments in technology to address carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, and requesting that West Virginia’s congressional delegation resist and oppose efforts to adopt a national cap and trade program that is detrimental to our State.

Whereas, The adoption of a national cap and trade program for carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions would have serious financial and economic implications for the State of West Virginia; and

Whereas, House Resolution 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, hereinafter referred to as the Act, is pending approval in Congress; and

Whereas, The Act calls for the establishment of a national cap and trade program that, if effected, would reduce West Virginia’s gross domestic product by an estimated $750 million by 2020 and by an estimated $1.75 billion by 2030; and

Whereas, West Virginia would lose up to 10,000 jobs by 2020 and up to 22,000 jobs by 2030 if the proposed cap and trade program is enacted; and

Whereas, The industries that would be most affected by the proposed cap and trade program include mining, retail trade and health care; and

Whereas, West Virginia is investing heavily in technology designed to limit carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, including a $100 million investment by American Electric Power in carbon sequestration and capture technology at its Mountaineer Plant in Mason County, a state-of-the-art facility that is the first of its kind in the world; and

Whereas, Globally, more coal is being used than ever, and demand is projected to rise to even greater levels as more coal- fired power plants are built in other countries; and

Whereas, Coal will continue to be a primary energy source to meet these additional demands and therefore the United States should lead the way in advancing cleaner coal technology; and

Whereas, Additional investments are needed to address carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the current energy supply; and

Whereas, The Legislature, with the leadership and support of the Governor, enacted laws to reduce, within reasonable limits, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions in this state by adopting an alternative and renewable energy portfolio standard and a regulatory framework for carbon capture and sequestration projects; and

Whereas, For the sake of those individuals and families who depend upon the industries that would be affected by a national cap and trade program, the House of Delegates, the Senate, the Governor and West Virginia’s congressional delegation must work together to ensure that any proposal to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions includes reasonable provisions intended to safeguard the security of this nation and West Virginia;

therefore, be it Resolved by the Legislature of West Virginia:

That the Legislature of West Virginia is opposed to the adoption of a national cap and trade program for carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions if it creates unnecessary volatility in the energy market, fails to address the energy and security needs of this country, threatens the jobs of hardworking men and women, raises energy costs to an unacceptable amount, fails to provide for additional investments in technology or is otherwise unduly burdensome to the State of West Virginia; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the Legislature of West Virginia supports measures that encourage investments in technology to address carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the Legislature of West Virginia requests that West Virginia’s congressional delegation resist and oppose efforts to adopt a national cap and trade program that is detrimental to our state; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates forward a certified copy of this resolution to United States Senators Robert C. Byrd and John D. Rockefeller IV and Representatives Nick J. Rahall, Alan B. Mollohan and Shelley M. Capito.

Kate Sheppard:

In a policy briefing sponsored by the United States Energy Association, Fred Palmer, a coal industry lobbyist and notorious climate change denier, touted the wonders of “green coal” as a “path to zero emissions.” Greenpeace’s new PolluterWatch program—a kind of oppo research team targeting global warming skeptics and energy interests—managed to sit in on the talk, which it said was attended by close to 100 administration and congressional staffers and policy experts.

Palmer has a solid history of undermining climate science on behalf of big polluters. He’s the head of government affairs at Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, and was formerly president of the Western Fuels Association and chairman of legal affairs for the National Mining Association.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation:

FDP_USEA_final-1 –