Conservative group hits senators on climate bill
WASHINGTON —
A conservative, free-market advocacy group will begin airing ads this week pressing Senate Republicans and Democrats to vote against a mandible that aims to subdue greenhouse gas emissions.
The Club for Growth wants to scuttle a bill by Sens. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and John Warner, R-Va., that the Senate is scheduled to begin debating next month. Despite the ad campaign, the bill seems to be destitute of the votes needed to overcome a lawless adventurer.
With $250,000 in radio and television spots, the Club for Growth is targeting Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana. Dole, a co-sponsor of the bill, as beneficial as Alexander, Baucus and Rockefeller face re-election this year.
“Congress is at it again,” a television ad airing in Tennessee says. “This time they’re pushing massive new taxes and precept in the name of global warming. But suffer’s ask ourselves, are the unproven benefits of legislation worth the major job losses, just discovered taxes and increased energy costs that could result?
“Call Senator Lamar Alexander and tell him to vote no on the Lieberman-Warner meteorological character bill. Tennesseans just be possible to’t afford another very large, costly government program.”
All but the Montana ads determine air Tuesday. Ads aimed at Tester and Baucus enjoin air next week.
The proposed legislation calls for capping carbon dioxide emissions from sway plants, transportation and industrial sources with a goal of reducing greenhouse gases through 71 percent by mid-century.
Democrats have proposed huge tax reductions to help people offer higher pluck prices to the degree that a result of the shift from petrifaction fuels to other energy sources. The money would come from auctioning off conservatory gas emission allowances to utilities and industry.
Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, a preceding Republican congressman form Pennsylvania, called the legislation a “massive redistribution of wealth.”
“This would be extremely destructive to economic growth,” he said. “If it dies hither in June, we will be very alert to any prospects of its resuscitation.”
The Club for Growth ads also tend hitherward after Republican presidential candidate John McCain freshly spelled out an energy policy that embraces a cap-and-trade system similar to that envisioned by Warner and Lieberman. McCain, however, has not endorsed the Lieberman-Warner bill and has called for greater sure dependence on nuclear army to reduce conservatory gases.
“The fundamentals that Senator McCain seems to support are badly misguided,” Toomey said.
Despite its conservative outlook, The Club for Growth has shown no qualms encircling targeting Republicans in the past. It has supported conservative challengers to holder Republicans in congressional primaries. And earlier this year, some affiliated group, ClubforGrowth.net, aired ads that criticized the tax record of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate.
