Lisa Murkowski Squawks About Her Environmental "Concern"; Outside Checks Her Work
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But the Senator’s voting record has undone any benefit from her work. By supporting Scott Pruitt for EPA, she helped undo the last decade’s worth of American climate policy. Murkowski did vote to confirm Pruitt for the post. Known before taking the job for his skeptical views about climate change, Pruitt oversaw perhaps the biggest rollback of regulations in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency, including several Obama-era regulations about cars and power plants that were designed to mitigate climate change. Pruitt also pushed President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate treaty. These have been enormous setbacks for the climate.
She was the swing vote in favor of repealing the BLM methane rule This requires a little clarification: Murkowski indeed voted last year to overturn an Obama-era regulation that required oil and gas producers on public lands to prevent the escape of methane, a greenhouse gas that’s about 30 times more potent in its ability to trap heat than carbon dioxide. Murkowski claimed the rule was expensive and unneeded and would cost jobs. In the end, Senate Republicans fell short on their attempt to rescind the vote. (Earlier this year, though, the Trump administration relaxed the regulation.) that would limit wasteful emissions of this super greenhouse gas.
Combine that with opening the Arctic Refuge for drilling, and all the little energy efficiency bills, small local hydro systems, and far distant future nuclear plants Murkowski’s support for the GOP tax bill one year ago was secured by adding a piece of pork that she and some other Alaskans had long prized: opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, allowing Alaska to extend its economy’s deep reliance on oil and to keep pushing oil out to the broader world. won’t save Alaskans from runaway warming.
Recently, the world’s top climate scientists reported that we will likely fail to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees (Centigrade), and that there is “no documented historic precedent” for the scale of action required to achieve that goal. Warming beyond 1.5 C will cripple Alaska’s economy; already, annual temperatures have increased more than twice as fast as global average, native villages are eroding into the sea, and bridges, roads, and buildings crumble as permafrost melts. “Cripple” could be debated, but dozens of towns and cities statewide may need to relocate. Melting permafrost is already playing havoc with roads and bridges. Harvestable fish are being affected by warming waters. The time for token measures that are nice but inadequate is long past. The time for bold action is now, even at great political risk, because no Senator should bear responsibility for the demise of her state. Plausible, bipartisan legislation includes ending subsidies for fossil fuels; voting against anti-climate appointments like Pruitt’s; passing state renewable energy standards; and backing national bipartisan climate policy like fee and dividend.
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https://www.outsideonline.com/2366581/lisa-murkowski-environmental-record-fact-check