League of Conservation Voters: Big Oil's allies install Paul Ryan as Speaker

Big Oil’s cronies scored a major victory with the ascension of Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House. 

This is an “all-hands-on-deck” moment — we need every LCV member with us as we take on Speaker Ryan and his allies in the dirty energy industry. 

There are three things we want LCV members to know about Paul Ryan right now (!). 

1. He denies climate science: Despite the fact that 97 percent of climate scientists say climate change is happening and the problem is man-made, Paul Ryan said last year that he doesn’t know the answer on climate change … and that science doesn’t either (a statement that’s simply appalling).
2. His budget plans were a massive giveaway to Big Oil. Every single one of Paul Ryan’s recent budget plans maintained $40 billion in special tax breaks for Big Oil, while slashing funding for programs critical to our air, water, lands, and wildlife.
3. He has consistently voted against the environment. Paul Ryan has earned an abysmal lifetime LCV score of just 12 percent. He’s voted against drinking water safeguards, clean air protections, clean energy investments, and countless other pro-environment policies.

Despite all of this, Speaker Ryan has an opportunity for a fresh start. But a fresh start only happens if he’s held accountable by a well-organized environmental community. To be crystal clear: an attack on the EPA and sensible actions to address climate change is not a fresh start. 


No challenge poses a greater threat to the future of our planet than climate change. That’s why LCV is fighting back against attacks on the EPA and efforts to roll back our bedrock environmental laws, and organizing support for President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. 

But transitioning away from fossil fuels and fighting climate change is the last thing Speaker Ryan wants — and it’s not hard to see why. In fact, Koch Industries Inc., led by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch, has been among Ryan's top lifetime contributors, giving the Wisconsin politician more than $80,000 between the 1998 and 2016 election cycles. And he’s received nearly $600,000 in campaign contributions over his career from the oil and gas industry. 

Poll after poll shows that Americans want action on climate change. We want to invest in clean energy and to have clean air and water for our families. Speaker Ryan and his allies will try to say that action on climate change is too costly, but the truth is that we can’t afford not to act. 

We have organizers on the ground in states across the country building support for the EPA. We have allies on the Hill every single day fighting for legislation that protects our environment. We have NASA, scientists, and even the Pentagon on our side. And we have you. 

Republican Governors Fulfill Billionaire Wishlist

Republican Governors Fulfill Billionaire Wishlist
With your backs turned, lobbying groups like ALEC have been operating in the shadows to erode your rights at the state level.
Posted by Ring of Fire on Friday, July 17, 2015

Campaign for America's Future: Disastrous Trade Deal About to Pass

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a massive trade deal that is still being written in secret. Corporations and big banks had a seat at the negotiating table while the American people and their representatives were shown the door. To get whatever is agreed to past the Congress, the corporate lobby, the president and the Republican congressional leaders want to force an up down vote on the final treaty, no amendments, after 20 hours of debate. They are having trouble lining up the votes. They are opposed by almost the entire Democratic caucus, and by more than a few Tea Party legislators. Yesterday, Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch announced he will not introduce the "fast track" bill until April. That gives us another month to mobilize opposition. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Republican leaders plan to use the month to line up votes so fast track can be introduced and voted on overnight. They want to "fast track" fast track! We have to stop this. Campaign for America’s Future has joined with dozens of nonprofits, labor unions and citizen advocates to send a message to every member of Congress: Vote no on “fast-track.” Over the next month, we will be organizing petitions and a campaign to flood congressional switchboards with calls. We’re writing articles and analysis toinform Americans what is at stake. We need your help. Can you make a donation today to support this effort? The big money is on the other side of this fight. We rely on the generosity of people like you to do this work. The TPP is a 12 country, twenty-nine chapter mistake comprising thousands of pages. It has less about trade than it is about corporate privilege and a grab bag of special interest giveaways. Oil companies got the right to export natural gas without government approval. Fracking companies get the right to sue the US for damages if Congress decides to enforce protections for our water or air. Drug companies won the right to entend their patents for years. Life-saving generics will be denied to many poor and working people. Medicare and Medicaid will strain under the weight of this profiteering. Multinationals got a ban on Buy America provisions, giving them even more incentive to ship good jobs abroad. And that’s only the beginning. Can you make a donation to support our effort to defeat the TPP and stop the attempt to fast track “fast-track. Thank you for all you do.

Progress Report: Kochs: Starting A New Dedicated Anti-Environment Effort et al

Here Come The Kochs

Jun 17, 2014 | By CAP Action War Room

Billionaire Koch Brothers Gear Up To Spend Hundreds Of Millions in 2014

It’s a been busy month for the billionaire right-wing donors and industrialists Charles and David Koch. The brothers, along with their spiderweb of dark money groups, are actively raising vast sums of money to influence federal, state, and even local elections and promote policies that benefit their bottom line at the expense of everyone else.

Here is some of the latest reported news of what the Kochs are up to these day:

• Planning To Spend Nearly $300 Million On The 2014 Elections. In an exclusive retreat at a fancy California resort near Laguna Beach last week, the Koch brothers and wealthy allies unveiled a new strategy for the 2014 elections with an initial fundraising target of $290 million. The retreat, which featured political allies including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and libertarian political scientist Charles Murray, is the most recent of a number of big and small gatherings so far to appeal to select wealthy conservative donors.
• Starting A New Dedicated Anti-Environment Effort. As leaders of a vast oil-and-gas conglomerate, the Koch brothers have a direct financial interest in blocking regulations to curb carbon pollution. They already fund a multitude of right-wing anti-environment groups, including the American Energy Alliance, which has targeted Democrats for potentially supporting a carbon tax. Now, the Kochs are dedicating a new initiative under their central fundraising network Freedom Partners that will aim to repeal successful state renewable energy standards and block the president’s proposed regulations to cut carbon emissions from power plants.
• Launching A New Super PAC To Spend Millions In Direct Support For Right-Wing Candidates. Previously, the Koch brothers mostly funneled their unprecedented political spending into issue-based attack ads slamming progressive policies. That’s now changing. As reported yesterday, the Koch network is starting a new Super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund that plans to spend at least $15 million in 2014 supporting right-wing candidates (as well as attacking progressives, as you might expect).
• Continuing To Invest Heavily In State And Local Policymaking. Americans For Prosperity, traditionally the Koch brothers’ most active political arm, is ramping up staff in states across the country to prepare for the 2014 elections and give a more intense focus toward state and local politics and policy. Paid staff is now at 240 in 32 states, up from 100 in 2010. The group’s president, Tim Phillips, isn’t shy about their desire to influence policy at any level: “at the state level, I would argue, it’s been a once-in-a-generation moment of free-market policy victories.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been working to expose the influence that the Koch brothers have on American politics. In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decisions striking down contribution limits, he has forcefully pushed for a constitutional amendment to put limits on campaign spending and called the flood of dark money like the Koch brothers’ “the greatest threat to our democracy that I have witnessed during my time in public service.”

BOTTOM LINE: The Koch brothers’ enormous spending to influence elections and policy outcomes is not slowing down at all in 2014. If anything, it is becoming more expansive, with new organizations joining the network and an increased focus on the state and local level. The more they spend trying to influence our political system to protect their bottom lines at the expense of everyone else, the more important it becomes to expose their goal and work to stop their outsized influence.

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Do you want to support the Dirty Energy Koch Brothers?

The Dirty Energy Koch Brothers have funded OPPOSITION to Cape Wind, the nation's first of its kind project that would CLEAN THE AIR in the region and much else.

The Dirty Energy Koch Brothers have funded propaganda spewed by Global Warming Deniers, misleading the public.  

The Dirty Energy Koch Brothers have funded opposition to Health Care with myths, lies and scare tactics.

The Dirty Energy Koch Brothers funded the Tea Party that spewed misinformation.

Boycotting the products listed below won't dent the Dirty Energy Empire....maybe we'll all feel a whole bunch better!

With every shopping trip, we could be spending our hard-earned money supporting the Koch brothers' radical anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-democratic agenda. Please, sign the pledge: don’t buy these Koch products. Koch industries and its subsidiaries are expansive––their holdings include everything from gas stations to pipelines, paper products for everyday use, greeting cards, chemicals used to make materials, and the fabric that makes your clothing. Because Koch Industries is so diversified, it’s near impossible to list every product that contains a chemical, material or pulp created by Koch industries, or one of its numerous subsidiaries. But, when we know which commonly purchased products fill the Koch coffers, we can avoid buying them and hit the Kochs where it hurts––their bottom line. Knowledge is power and your dollar is your vote. We can become informed purchasers and refuse to support their political agenda by refusing to purchase their wares. Please sign the pledge and join the movement: Don’t buy Koch. You’ll be directed to some great resources after this email including a visual image of the brands, a list of labels, and a blog post about how to avoid Koch products. Keep fighting, Rachel Colyer Campaign Director, Daily Kos

P.S. Please help keep Daily Kos strong by chipping in $3.

The Anti-Environment President

Senator Inhofe is among the most bought and paid for Senators, in case you missed the FACTS. Regrettably, the Obama Administration is becoming increasingly Anti-Environment.

NationofChange

The EPA invoked its power to protect drinking water in 2010, prompting Oklahoma Sen. Inhofe to request the Inspector General’s investigation in 2011.

 

Inspector General Finds EPA Justified in Intervening to Protect Drinking...

nationofchange.org

Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Inspector General found EPA Region 6 was justified in legally intervening to protect Parker...

 

 

The EPA’s withdrawal from Parker County appears to be part of a larger pattern, in which the Obama administration has blocked or abandoned investigations of whether drilling or

hydraulic fracturing polluted drinking water. In addition to the case in Parker County, reports in major news outlets indicate that the Obama administration caused the EPA to abandon studies of potential drilling or fracking pollution in Pavillion, WY and Dimock, PA despite evidence of drilling-related harm.

 

“The Obama administration appears to be more concerned about protecting corporate interests, not the public interest,” said

Steve Lipsky, a Weatherford, TX homeowner who sued Range Resources after the EPA named the company the party responsible for contaminating his drinking water well. “President Obama promised that hydraulic fracturing would occur safely. With this IG report, it now seems clear that he is determined to squash any evidence to the contrary.”

 

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/inspector-general-finds-epa-justified-intervening-protect-drinking-water-fracking-1387983304

 

 

 

Frack Action

In gratitude for everyone's unparalleled work, solidarity, and commitment to the truth and a better future, happy holidays!

 

 

 

The Sierra Club

Canadian PM Stephen Harper recently promised President Obama he'd set climate goals -- if only the president will approve Harper's dirty tar sands pipeline. Urge Obama to not fall for Harper's empty promises: KXL will always be a climate disaster! ‪#‎NoKXL‬

TAKE ACTION --> http://sc.org/NoKXLdeals

Tell President Obama: No deals on Keystone XL!

secure.sierraclub.org

 

Canada's record of broken climate promises speaks for itself. The Harper administration has consistently failed to meet its carbon reduction targets, eliminated some of its biggest climate programs, withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol (the only country in the world to do so), and even silenced

 

 

NationofChange

The outside of the newly opened Whole Foods on Brooklyn, NY’s Gowanus Canal contains more examples of renewable energy and efficiency than some companies have throughout their entire operations.

 

 

 

http://www.nationofchange.org/brooklyn-whole-foods-wows-solar-wind-ev-chargers-greenhouse-and-more-1387899087

1,000,000 Strong Against Offshore Drilling

Join in. Find ways to make it happen.

http://climatemarch.org/
‘Climate Patriots’ to March on Washington
Great March for Climate Action

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made a mistake electing Keating!

Congressman Barney Frank spoiled his constituents with his unparalleled constituent services and his clear responses.

Call Keating's Office and all you get is double talk, 'I don't know the Congressman's position....' blah, blah, blah.

While I won't review Congressman Keating's disappointing votes, his constituents might be wise to pay attention. Big DISAPPOINTMENT!  

In response to my opposition to a NEW ENGLAND DIRTY TAR SANDS PIPELINE, the Congressman's misguided response is below.

TAR SANDS SPILLS are exempt from CLEAN-UP costs. Taxpayers will foot the bill for these disasters .... and there have been many.

Thank you for contacting me regarding the New England pipeline. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your concerns.

As you know, the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line currently connects South Portland, Maine, with Montreal to transport tar sands oil from the United States to Canada. Jointly owned by Portland Pipe Line Corporation and Montreal Pipe Line Limited, these two corporations have recently considered proposals to expand and reverse the flow of their jointly-owned Portland-Montreal Pipe Line so that tar sands would flow toward Portland for domestic and international export. A similar proposal has been made by Enbridge to reverse the company's Line 9, a pipeline that currently flows from Montreal to Michigan, so that tar sands may be transported from Michigan to Montreal. Should both of these proposals be implemented, it is possible that an unprecedented volume of tar sands from across the United States and Canada could be directed through Montreal toward Portland.

I believe a pipeline that has the potential to create thousands of jobs and reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil is certainly important. At the same time, I represent a region that boasts pristine coastlines and fragile ecosystems. Many throughout New England have sharply criticized these proposals due to the environmental consequences tar sands could have on our region. Please know that, as your representative in Washington, I have always fought for safe and efficient energy policies that would create clean energy jobs in the United States , establish energy independence , and protect our environment. As New England is home to some of the most beautiful and fragile natural resources in the United States, we must not take unnecessary risks that would harm these resources in any way. Please know that I will keep your thoughts in mind should legislation related to this issue come before the full House of Representatives for a vote.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future regarding this or any other matter of concern. Additionally, you may find our website ( www.keating.house.gov ) to be a useful resource for keeping up with my work in Washington and the Ninth District of Massachusetts. I look forward to hearing from you again.

Sincerely,

Bill Keating
Member of Congress