Last week, amidst the fight for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, many of our nation’s youth leaders converged on Washington to tell Senator Lisa Murkowski that her Dirty Act Act would hurt America now and in the future.
Murkowski, of Alaska, has a resolution in the Senate that would prevent the EPA from regulating CO2 emissions, something directly in contrast with the carbon cap and clean energy investment we are looking for.
We were first able to sit in on an Environment and Public Works hearing, chaired by Senator Barbara Boxer, to pass our message along.
Following the hearing, we were able to meet with the Republican staff director of the Energy and Natural Resources committee, of which Murkowski is the Ranking Member.
The next night, Murkowski was attending a fundraiser with some of her big contributors with energy and utility interests. We found out about it and tried to ask why she cared more about them than the American people, specifically the youth that have to live for decades to come with the environmental damage her resolution would create.
We need climate legislation, not a Dirty Air Act. We plan to keep telling senators like Lisa Murkowski that she will only hurt America with resolutions like this and that she should value her voters over Big Oil and Dirty Coal executives. Like her own energy committee staff director said, “we’ll be glad when we get past this disapproval resolution, because it has cut into our effort to get a climate bill.”
