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Jim: jdipeso@rep.org
(253) 740-2066 / 2010
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The Murkowski Mystery
August 3, 2010
Thanks
to Democratic ineptitude and a remarkably passive president, prospects
for a climate bill passing this year are rapidly circling the drain.
Eyes are turning towards the Environmental Protection Agency, which
plans to use its Clean Air Act authority to limit greenhouse gas
emissions by regulation. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who lost a
legislative fight earlier this summer to block EPA, plans to try again.
 Murkowski’s rationale –
reasonable on its face – is that the complex
job of limiting heat-trapping gas emissions should be left to Congress,
which can legislate incentives and flexibility options for rewiring the
nation’s energy economy that EPA’s by-the-book regulators cannot.
Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Senate's Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, meaning she is the GOP caucus' point person on
energy. So, did Murkowski draft and round up support for legislation
capping greenhouse gas emissions in the 111th Congress? She did not.
Has she championed the alternative approach of a carbon tax? Nope.
Has she co-sponsored the cap-and-dividend bill that Senators Susan
Collins (R-ME) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) have introduced, the only
bipartisan climate bill in the running? Negative again.
Murkowski is
thought to be one
of the middle-ground Republicans whose votes are critical for passing a
climate bill. She has, off and on,
allowed that climate change is a serious issue, especially in Alaska,
where the early signs of a changing climate already are apparent.
She doesn't want EPA dealing with climate change, says Congress should
handle the issue, holds a senior position on the energy committee, but
hasn't offered any specific ideas for Congress to consider.
Everyone knows where Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and his crowd of
science-challenged climate change denialists stand. Senator Murkowski,
where do you stand?
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