One dictionary I consulted gave several definitions for reaction:
1. a. A response to a stimulus. b. The state resulting from such a response.
2. A reverse or opposing action.
3. a. A tendency to revert to a former state. b. Opposition to progress or liberalism; extreme conservatism.
What I gather from this is that people like Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski want to impede progress, no matter how grounded it may be in American law and tradition. If she doesn’t think that protecting the environment is a fundamental American tradition, a way of life, then she should go back and read up on her history, perhaps particularly that part of it that includes the work of her Republican Party forebear, Theodore Roosevelt, not to mention her contemporary, Theodore Roosevelt IV.
Why should Senator Murkowski pay attention to this? Because she’s working very hard, with some very special interests, to block the legally constituted, indeed mandated responsibility of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect the public health and the environment. What is EPA doing that so threatens her and the fossil fuel industries? They’re proceeding to regulate greenhouse gases. (See under “endangerment finding” at these posts.)
Juliet Eilperin and her colleagues at the “Washington Post” have done a little digging and found that Murkowski is working hand-in-glove with two industry lobbyists to scuttle the EPA program. Thankfully, she faces an uphill battle. As one environmental operative notes: “Striking at the heart of the Clean Air Act isn’t a popular thing to do.” Even among some Republicans. The “NY Times” called this Ms. Murkowski’s Mischief in an editorial on Monday saying “Ms. Murkowski has been considering various proposals related to climate change – all mischievous.”
You would not be surprised to learn that Al Gore is putting his shoulder to the wheel against this move. His groups, the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Climate Protection Action Fund, have been speaking out against “Senate efforts to turn the Clean Air Act into the Dirty Air Act.”
With the Senate a major stumbling block on the path to federal climate change legislation, and now storm warnings that this Congressional house, having failed to materially advance legislation in 2009, may not pursue a bill even this year, it becomes all-the-more critical that the EPA do its job and push ahead with a regulatory approach to curbing greenhouse gases. It’s the right thing to do.
