What's Worse, Republican Science Deniers Or Corrupt Transactional Democrats?

Where Does Tom Steyer Get His Targeting Advice?

Tom Steyer is a San Francisco billionaire and a dedicated environmental activist. Last year, he spent $11 million helping elect one of the most corrupt corporate whores in American politics, Virginia's new governor, Terry McAuliffe. A few days later, the Washington Post reported that Governor McAuliffe has joined a coalition of right-wing, anti-environment governors pushing for off-shore drilling. Steyer may be delighted he helped keep Ken Cucchinelli out of office but his boy McAuliffe joined up with Climate Change deniers Pat McCrory (R-NC), Robert Bentley (R-AL), and Phil Bryant (R-MS) to demand that the Interior Department allow Big Oil and Gas companies to drill, baby, drill off the coasts of their states.

This morning, Andrew Restuccia reported for Politico that Steyer has announced the first 7 states in which he's deploying his $100 million political budget for 2014. NextGen Climate Action, a super PAC, is targeting the Senate races in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and New Hampshire and the governor’s races in Florida, Maine and Pennsylvania in what is likely to be the best-funded pro-environmental campaign in history.

So how did he pick his targets? I was at a board meeting the other day for one of the preeminent progressive groups in the country. The staff outlined their political plans for the cycle. As best I could tell, it came directly from the DSCC and was utterly unrelated to the progressive values of the organization. Grotesquely conservative Democrats in states the DSCC has signaled are top priorities-- Mary Landrieu (LA), Mark Pryor (AR), Kay Hagan (NC), Alison Lundergan Grimes (KY), Sam Nunn's daughter (GA) were the organization's top targets. No Shenna Bellows in Maine, no Rick Weiland in South Dakota, both of whom the DSCC say are too progressive for their states. Ironically, Weiland has a better chance of winning-- or he would if he were funded as well as the DSCC targets-- than Grimes and Nunn's daughter.

NextGen is bypassing key Senate races in which the Democratic incumbent has not put a major priority on climate change and renewable energy. The prime example is Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Mary Landrieu’s reelection bid in Louisiana, where she has been a champion of her state’s oil and gas industry and a vocal supporter of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

While Steyer puts a priority on maintaining Democrats’ majority in the Senate-- he donated $5 million to a political committee tasked with getting Senate Democrats reelected-- his first order of business is changing the conversation on climate change, said Chris Lehane, a veteran Democratic operative who serves as Steyer’s top political adviser.

“This is the year, in our view, where we’re able to demonstrate that you can use climate, if you do it well and you do it in a smart way, as a wedge issue to win political races,” Lehane said.

Lehane said NextGen could get involved in more states eventually, and he indicated Steyer is already looking ahead to the 2016 presidential race. “Obviously we do have an eye both on 2014 and 2016,” he said, adding that NextGen believes that questioning climate science “functionally disqualifies you from being president.”

Steyer has previously said he’ll spend $50 million or more of his personal fortune on the campaign, a sum he hopes to match with $50 million in donations from green-minded donors. But until now, his group hasn’t fully spelled out all of the states and races where it intends to make its stand.

It’s a formidable task. Voters rate the economy and jobs as much higher priorities than climate change in almost every poll. And most of the Democrats that NextGen is supporting haven’t made climate change a major focus of their campaigns so far, even if they occasionally mention it.

Gary Peters, a Business-friendly New Dem, is the terribly flawed candidate in Michigan. Overly cautious and utterly uninspiring, Peters has, for a Democrat, a middling voting record on the environment. In terms of crucial votes on Climate Change since he was elected to the House he's got a 79.17 and a 68.75 on Renewable Energy. Those are not environmentally-friendly scores. If Steyer is looking to help the Democrats retain control of the Senate, backing Peters isn't a bad idea. But if Steyers is looking for allies in the fight for sound environmental and Climate policy, Peters will probably be as disappointing as McAuliffe. Steyer would be far better off helping elect a true believer like Shenna Bellows and giving a hand to incumbent Democrat Brian Schatz (D-HI) who is fighting off a well-funded challenge from an a horribly corrupt, anti-environment New Dem, Colleen Hanabusa. Schatz's voting record makes him the #1 environmental fighter in the whole Senate. He has a score of 100. Hanabusa, whose entire career has been predicated on which special interest pay her and her crooked husband/bagman how much for her votes, has a 75.00 on Renewable Energy and an 88.3 on Global Warming. It would be a catastrophe for the environmental movement if Hanabusa replaces Schatz.

Steyer is getting too much mediocre advice from the turds at the DSCC and the DNC. Maybe he should just fund an environmental PAC for the Holy See.

Pope Francis made the religious case for tackling climate change on Wednesday, calling on his fellow Christians to become “Custodians of Creation” and issuing a dire warning about the potentially catastrophic effects of global climate change.

Speaking to a massive crowd in Rome, the first Argentinian pope delivered a short address in which he argued that respect for the “beauty of nature and the grandeur of the cosmos” is a Christian value, noting that failure to care for the planet risks apocalyptic consequences.

“Safeguard Creation,” he said. “Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!”

The pope centered his environmentalist theology around the biblical creation story in the book of Genesis, where God is said to have created the world, declared it “good,” and charged humanity with its care. Francis also made reference to his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, who was a famous lover of animals, and appeared to tie the ongoing environmental crisis to economic concerns-- namely, instances where a wealthy minority exploits the planet at the expense of the poor.

“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude,” Francis said.

Francis also said that humanity’s destruction of the planet is a sinful act, likening it to self-idolatry.

“But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’-- Here, this is sin! Do you see?”… “Human action which is not respectful of nature becomes a boomerang for human beings that creates inequality and extends what Pope Francis has termed ‘the globalization of indifference’ and the ‘economy of exclusion’ (Evangelii Gaudium), which themselves endanger solidarity with present and future generations,” the statement read.

Wednesday, environmental champion Henry Waxman sent a letter to his colleagues urging them to oppose an amendment from West Virginia Big Coal whore David McKinley. "The flat earth society," wrote Waxman, "is at it again. Today, Rep. McKinley will offer an amendment to H.R. 4435 that denies that carbon pollution causes harm. Science denial will not solve the problem.

Earlier this month, our nation’s leading climate scientists released the National Climate Assessment, which confirmed that climate change is real, is caused by humans, and is already harming communities across America. The assessment explains that the scientific evidence is “unequivocal.”

Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s premiere climate science body, released its authoritative reports on the state of climate science. The latest science shows that climate change is expected to exacerbate heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, and water- and vector-borne diseases, which will pose greater risks to human health and lives around the world. Wheat and corn yields are already experiencing negative impacts due to climate change. According to the IPCC, increasing global temperatures combined with an increase in food demand “poses large risks to food security globally and regionally.”

The McKinley amendment tells the Defense Department to ignore these scientific findings and the impacts climate change will have on our national security. That is irresponsible.

Republican science deniers may not want to acknowledge it, but every American taxpayer is already bearing the costs of climate change. And for those who lost their income, their home, or even their life in devastating droughts, floods, fires, or super storms, the costs are dramatically higher.

As it turns out, McKinley's deranged amendment passed this morning, 231-192. The Science Deniers included every Republican but 3 (Garrett, Gibson and LoBiondo) plus 4 of the most sold-out Democrats in the House:

• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog- NC)
• Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV)