Brad Johnson takes note that 13 other states seek to join Utah and Alabama in passing resolutions would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions.
Every resolution makes the false claim that protecting citizens from hazardous climate pollution would hurt the economy, instead of recognizing the potential of a green recovery. Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Alaska lawmakers talk about being “dependent” on the coal and oil industries whose lobbyists are fighting climate action. Several of the resolutions, drafted early last year, call on Congress to reject the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, which passed the House of Representatives in June but has languished in the Senate. The Alaska and West Virginia resolutions support Sen. Lisa Murkowski‘s (R-Alaska) effort to rewrite the Clean Air Act (S.J.Res. 26), and Alabama’s resolution calls for the passage of Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s (D-N.D.) similar effort (H.R. 4396).
The most legally bizarre resolution is Arizona state senator Sylvia Allen’s (R-Ariz.) “tenther” argument that the U.S. Congress does not have the Constitutional authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. Allen also believes the Earth is 6000 years old. The other Arizona resolution, along with the Kentucky, Virginia, and Washington resolutions, would attempt to block state enforcement of global warming rules.
These efforts to overturn the Clean Air Act and replace science with conspiracy theories are being supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a national organization that brings conservative state lawmakers together with industry lobbyists.
The false claim made in these resolutions gets a major smackdown from a study from the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley. The study shows that California's green policies from 1977-2007 eliminated 25,000 jobs, but created 1.5 million other jobs, improving compensation statewide by more than $44 billion. During the same period, per capita electricity usage in the state dropped by 40 percent.