Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., just finished his Senate floor speech a few minutes ago, offering his reasons for voting in favor of a resolution that attempts to revoke an EPA finding that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to public health and welfare.
The floor debate is continuing, but I’m told that West Virginia’s senior Senator, Robert C. Byrd, will not speak on the floor and has still not decided how he will vote. You can watch the debate live on C-Span here.
We’ve previously addressed Rockefeller’s stance (here, here and here) and explained how the resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, would overturn EPA’s simple backing of the great weight of evidence about the size of the problem climate change presents for our society.
While voting in favor of that measure, Sen. Rockefeller insisted:
I’m not hear to deny or bicker fruitlessly about science, as some would suggest. I think the science is correct, but that doesn’t in one iota deter my support for the Murkowski resolution.
I care deeply about this earth, and I resent anyone who suggests otherwise about me or about the people of my state.
Rather, Sen. Rockefeller argued that his vote was not one against the science, but in favor of putting EPA in its place:
We must send a strong and urgent message that the fate of our economy and our workers, including our coal workers, should never be placed solely in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency. The elected people and not the unelected EPA have constitutional responsibility here.
Rockefeller’s floor speech focused on his love of coal and coal miners, drawing clearly from the industry’s public relations slogans:
I don’t want EPA turning out the lights on America.
I fight for my people. I understand that I’m a United States senator. But I’m a United States senator from west Virginia.
You can’t run this country without coal. I am for all alternative fuels … but you add them all up, nobody can make the point you can do any of this without coal.
We mine coal.
I’m elected to protect my people and my country. But first comes my people, and especially on this issue.
Sen. Rockefeller criticized those fellow Senators who pointed to the BP Oil Disaster as a reason to vote against the Murkowski resolution and instead get on with the business of passing clean energy and climate change legislation. He said the two matters were “separate issues” and that the BP Disaster “had no business being discussed while this is being discussed.”
Interestingly, in his zeal to praise “clean coal,” Sen. Rockefeller said:
It’s a triumph when one of our power plants reduces 90 to 95 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions.
Because it happened, and it came to the stimulus package and we were a part of that.
I assume Sen. Rockefeller was talking about American Electric Power’s pilot carbon capture and sequestration project at its Mountaineer Plant in Mason County, W.Va. But the last time I checked, even with the $334 million in federal “stimulus” funding, the AEP project was only going to capture less than 20 percent of the Mountaineer Plant’s carbon dioxide emissions …
UPDATED:
I’m told that Sen. Rockefeller misspoke, and that his official comments in the Congressional Record will be changed so that this is what he is reflected as saying about CCS:
West Virginia is poised to lead a major part in the effort on clean technology because we know energy. We have lived with it for the last 150 years. We know coal. We know natural gas. We are coming to know CCS as few others do. It is a triumph when one of our power plants reduces 90 percent of the carbon emissions from the flue stream that it treats. That is a triumph to us — maybe to nobody else, but to us it is because it happened and it came from the stimulus package and we were a part of that.
The entire statement is online here.
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The red blue divide doesn’t capture the political landscape all that well when it comes to coal. Better to describe the schism as brown green.
Think any senators from the green states will vote with Rockefeller? I’d wager not even Scott Brown, the new 41 in town. Any takers?
The crucial votes on climate policy, it appears, are coming later this year. Rockefeller understands the science and the gravity of the issue. Let’s hope he votes in the best interests of West Virginia and the nation.
Senator Rockefeller seems to be channeling his great-grandfather as he comes down on the side of unfettering industry.
“I care deeply about this earth, and I resent anyone who suggests otherwise about me or about the people of my state.”
I can’t help but shake my head when I see statements like this come from industry-supporting politicians or mining companies. All of them seize any opportunity to claim how much they “love” their state or the Earth. Wife-beaters claim the same thing every time they are thrown in jail or put their spouse in the hospital. Our elected officials seem to have the same caliber of moral standing. As Bob Sloan once quoted “Mountaintop removal is the industrial equivalent of wife-beating.” I agree.
In his own words: “……my people….we mine coal….” Clearly he does not claim the vast majority of us in West Virginia as “his people.”
It sounds simple to me. Byrd and Rockefeller want promise of some industry to replace coal in WV, and I guess if new alternative energy had the tax dollars to support WV, and the jobs, they would go that route if they both agree climate change is a concern.
But, somehow, they must feel carbon capture is viable. So emphasizing CO2 has actually resulted in decreasing CO2. It will cost more, but in reality, alternative energy, aside from gas, does not keep WV warm in the winter. People do not have enough sunlight for solar,and windmills do not give enough energy either in WV. It is too expensive for average people, especially an aging population to retrofit old houses to geothermal. So, you insulate and do the best that you can.
No one talks about Create WV and actually working with them on solutions. God forbid nuclear plants because they cost too much to build and go out of commission over time. So, what do you do? Everyone looks to government or blame corporations, instead of working togather. The more division created, the less solutions you’ll find. Same old divide and conquer, does not work.Better to all care about WV.
Environmentalists want green capitalists, yet negativity toward other options does not help. WV needs to listen to environmentalists and transition, and WV needs time to do it. No young people moving back to WV to help pay for the elderly because we have few opportunities and we export our brightest people, out of state.
We miss federal funding putting all our eggs in one basket. Too bad an ESOP coal mine can’t be created as an experiment.How would coal miners run a coal company if they shared greatly in the profits?
Maybe more What if…and less of NO talk. Maybe it takes small,medium and large options, and WV people to decide. Contrary to popular belief, common sense still works, for each local person-Distributism.Neither socialistic nor capitalistic.
Small businesses need to be permitted to grow in WV, and WV should promote them. Mom’s and Pop’s should be given reduced costs to advertise on Coal Tattoo, and we should support them, no matter if they are for or against coal.
[...] I’ve already blogged about Sen. Rockefeller’s misstatement about the size and effectiveness of American Electric Power’s test carbon capture project at its Mountaineer Plant in Mason County, W.Va. [...]