NYT: State Legislatures Pile Onto Anti-EPA Climate Rule Effort (under ALEC's direction)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/04/01/01climatewire-state-legislatures-pile-onto-anti-epa-climat-49876.html

Remember the Times has a paywall now and limited access to articles. I'm going to summarize the article in addition to quoting it, if you don't want to click on that link.

State Legislatures Pile Onto Anti-EPA Climate Rule Effort
By CHRISTA MARSHALL
Published: April 1, 2011


-snip-

Eight states ranging from Michigan to Virginia have adopted formal resolutions this year pressing Capitol Hill lawmakers to block what they term the agency's regulatory "train wreck." Some 14 other state legislatures have parallel measures that are working their way through committees in state chambers.

The action comes at a time when Republicans have made historic gains in state chambers in November elections. It also represents the growing influence of a free-market group of industries and state legislators, the American Legislative Exchange Council, that recently touted model legislation condemning EPA, analysts say.

That model legislative language offered by the council via its "train wreck" website and companion documents has popped up in nearly identical form in most of the states passing and considering the measures.

-snip-

In addition to Indiana and Michigan, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming have adopted parallel measures this year. Other states considering resolutions include Missouri, Montana, Minnesota, Alaska and West Virginia.

-snip-

According to the article, several state legislators sponsoring these resolutions have admitted the language in their bills came from ALEC. One of those is Indiana state Rep. David Wolkins (R), chairman of the Indiana House Environmental Affairs Committee, and the article links to the PDF file with his bill:

http://www.in.gov/legislative/bills/2011/PDF/HRESP/HR0013.pdf

The article quotes Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, who says that "ALEC is this reactionary legislative group that espouses this ready, fire, aim approach." And it quotes Kert Davies of Greenpeace calling ALEC "the biggest Chicken Little scared-of-climate-change-legislation organization in the country."

The Times also refers to the frequent mentions online of what Virginia Delegate Will Morefield said -- that the anti-EPA resolution from ALEC that he introduced was, according to Morefield, "presented to me by the coal industry." I posted about that article in reply 44 in my compilation topic on ALEC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230#595404

which links to the article with that quote:

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/02/coal-bills-author-revealed-full

ALEC has been getting a lot of attention and criticism lately -- criticism it deserves, in my opinion -- and this Times story mentions the criticism, and also includes some quotes from ALEC members defending the role corporations play in ALEC and claiming their model legislation is "nothing unusual."

I believe most voters would disagree, and the more they know about ALEC, the better.