Working For Jobs

by Joseph Romm.

This post was cowritten by Araceli Ruano, the Center for
American Progress’ senior vice president and director for California. Andrew
Fitzgerald Adams also contributed to this post.

Last week, Politico reported on the California Senate
debate:  “Fiorina’s
major stumble came on the issue of Proposition 23.” Carly Fiorina had
waffled on whether she supported the landmark climate and clean energy
legislation (AB 32) that Prop 23 would kill, since, of course, she supported
cap-and-trade during the presidential campaign.

Now the GOP Senate candidate has completed her flip-flop to full
support for the dirty energy proposition funded by Big Oil, as the L.A. Times notes.

Fiorina’s campaign finally released a
(somewhat) clear message on where she stands on Prop 23 on Friday,
calling the measure a “Band-Aid
fix and an imperfect solution”  to addressing energy and
climate issues, but still supporting it. Here is her full statement on
Prop 23:

Proposition 23 is a Band-Aid fix and an imperfect
solution to addressing our nation’s climate and energy challenges. The
real solution to these challenges lies not with a single state taking
action on its own, but rather with global action. That’s why we need a
comprehensive, national energy solution that funds energy R&D and
takes advantage of every source of domestic energy we have—including
nuclear, wind, and solar—in an environmentally responsible way. That
said, AB 32 is undoubtedly a job killer, and it should be suspended.

It is unclear how a candidate can call for extensive research and
legislative action on the climate and energy “challenge” and at the
same time support a proposition that would bury the work that California
  has done on the issue over the last decade. California has set
itself up to be the leader in renewable energy through AB 32 and the
resulting rules, but Prop 23 would eviscerate all the progress the state
  has made.

How can she say AB 32 “is undoubtedly a job killer” now when just two
years ago she said
cap-and-trade “will both create jobs and lower the cost of energy?”

Fiorina seems to be trying to pass the buck to the federal
government, in language that is eerily
similar to that coming from the climate change deniers at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, which has endorsed Fiorina, is notorious for questioning
the science of global warming. It made headlines when its
anti-climate position caused a number of major companies to walk
away from the Chamber last year.

Again, as recently as 2008, she advocated
for the proposed cap-and-trade system she now opposes. And now she
appears to be siding with Texas
oil interests over her own state and an approach she embraced just
two years ago), as this video makes clear:

What changed? Could it be all the contributions from the Koch
brothers, ExxonMobil,
Halliburton, Sarah
Palin, and Tesoro—all part of a PAC
contribution list that reads like a Who’s Who of oil profiteers? The same Koch brothers that have sent a
reported $50 million to climate change denying groups have already
given thousands of dollars to Fiorina, with more likely on the way.

Fiorina’s vacillation and final decision to support Prop 23 leads one
  to believe that her support is available to the highest bidder or whatever
way the political winds blow. Instead of standing with the thousands
of jobs in renewable energy,  or the millions of Californians that
want the state to lead on climate change, she has chased campaign
donations. What a shame.

Related Links:

Michigan governor’s race: Snyder vs. Bernero

California’s Prop 23 is bad news for Latino families

Stupid goes viral: The Climate Zombies of the new GOP

View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

by Joseph Romm.

Poor Carly Fiorina. To make conservative ideologues happy, she has
to abandon science and her previous positions on the key issues of
global warming and clean energy.

But to win election statewide, she has to appeal to the majority of
California voters, who understand that clean energy is the key to the
state’s long-term economic and job growth—and that unrestricted
emissions of greenhouse gases will devastate
California more than most states.

And so in her first debate with climate and clean energy champion
Sen. Barbara Boxer, she simply couldn’t give a straightforward answer to the
simple question of whether she supported the Big Oil funded Prop 23
effort to gut California’s landmark climate and clean energy law, Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32).

Let’s go to the videotape (watch to the end):

Ouch.

You know that you have screwed up as a conservative politician when
the center-right Politico
says so:

Fiorina’s major stumble came on the issue of Proposition
23, which would suspend AB 32.  She said the focus should be on federal
climate legislation and that she had not yet taken a position on the
proposition.

“If you can’t take a stand on Prop 23, I don’t know what you will
take a stand on,” Boxer responded.

Talking to reporters after the debate, Fiorina sidestepped the issue,
  saying she would “probably” take a position on Prop 23 before
November, though it’s not her main priority. She insisted the real
referendum on energy legislation “is on the ballot—and her name is
Sen. Barbara Boxer.”

You’ll note that Fiorina immediately jumps to the old right-wing
talking point created by Frank Luntz for conservatives who want to sound
like they care about global warming and clean energy without actually
having to do anything: We need to fund energy R&D.

As for her claim that AB 32 is a job-killer, not only do 118
economists disagree, but so did Fiorina and rational Republicans just two years ago:

Related Links:

Koch brothers jump into Prop 23 fight

California bags the plastic bag ban but makes solar leap

Latest Gulf oil well explosion was no disaster, but what does it say about offshore drilling?

View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist