Gore Supports Dems Rallying to Save EPA Regulations

 

Former Vice President and noted environmentalist Al Gore has offered his support to the 12 Democrats of Senate Environment and Public Works, who are rallying to defeat Senate Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Gore told supporters in an e-mail yesterday that he felt Republicans were trying to “strip (the EPA) of its ability to regulate most carbon pollution, letting the worst offenders off the hook.”

In the course of his fight to bring light to the threat of global warming, Gore has claimed and Academy Award and the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Murkowski is debating internally whether or not to bring forward an amendment limiting the EPA’s scope in regards to limiting greenhouse gas emissions.  Murkowski is also considering pursuing a disapproval motion under the Congressional Review Act, according to Bloomberg.

Should the Alaska senator follow through with her amendment plan, she would be presenting it to a full Senate on January 20.  Here she could present her amendment that would increase the debt limit, attach it to other legislation or fall back to the disapproval motion.

Murkowski attempted to offer an amendment with similar language in 2009 to the fiscal 2010 Interior-Environment Appropriations bill, which would prevent the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide emissions for exactly one year.

Democrats have yet to finalize a plan to respond to Murkowski’s measures, should she bring them forward later this month, but an aide to Senator Barbara Boxer, who serves as the chairperson of Environment and Public Works, told Darren Goode of governmentexecutive.com that alternative approaches are actively being prepared.