Those of you who have been watching the Senate campaign of failed businesswoman and newest member of the national League of Conservation Voters’ “Dirty Dozen” know that Carly Fiorina has flip-flopped on environmental issues several times. In her latest televised embarrassment, Fiorina stumbled over her answers to questions about climate change and whether or not she supports Prop 23, which would repeal California’s landmark climate law (while insisting she wasn’t being “evasive”) at this week’s debate with Senator Barbara Boxer. But now, two days later, she has figured out her official position on the “Dirty Energy Proposition” on the November ballot. According to the Associated Press:
Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Friday endorsed an oil-company funded ballot initiative that seeks to indefinitely delay California’s landmark global warming law. The announcement comes two days after the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive refused to take a position during her debate with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. In a statement, Fiorina said she prefers a national energy policy and called California’s 2006 law, known as AB32, a “job killer.”
Flip-flop. As Calitics blogger Robert Cruickshank writes, “Fiorina’s hesitation has magically evaporated.” Once again, Fiorina proves she is not only out of touch with Californians, who overwhelmingly support the state’s leadership on clean energy and climate change, but she is also out of touch with the facts, which show that AB 32 is creating the one bright spot in California’s economy and attracting the majority of the nation’s venture capital investment in clean energy technology. Fiorina’s announcement of her newly formulated position comes on the heals of an investment of another sort — Koch Industries (another out-of-state Big Oil entity, this one based in Kansas) dumped a cool million dollars into the Prop 23 campaign, quite literally in the middle of the night, in an attempt to avoid media scrutiny. The billionaire Koch brothers are kingpins of funding climate change denial and Tea Party activists; their right-wing agenda was recently exposed in the New Yorker. As reported by the Los Angeles Times:
The involvement of the Koch brothers signals that the California initiative is likely to become the focus of a national campaign, now that climate change legislation has stalled in Congress. The Koch brothers (pronounced “Coke”), who operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota, have sponsored a web of groups involved in campaigns to deny the significance of climate change and the need for renewable energy. Koch-funded groups have trained and organized “tea party” activists across the country. “If you combined BP’s approach to safety with Enron’s greed, you would have Koch,” said Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for the “No on 23” campaign. “With this contribution, the out-of-state oil companies trying to put their profits before California jobs just got a lot dirtier.”
While the Koch’s $1 million was flowing into the Yes on Prop 23 campaign, another $1 million was pledged by Tesoro, a Texas-based oil company and a major polluter in California. As of today, 97 percent of the $8.2 million raised by the Yes on Prop 23 campaign has comes from oil interests and 89 percent of that money has come from outside of California. Just three companies: Koch Industries, Tesoro, and Valero, have provided 80 percent of Prop 23’s funding. The blogs (like this one on Daily Kos) and the Stop Prop 23 campaign folks are all over this latest cash infusion to the Prop 23 coffers, but will mainstream media cover this disgusting attempt by out-of-state oil interests to hide the fact that they are the ones behind the repeal of our state’s job-creating clean energy law? After all, this dropped on Friday of a holiday weekend. These oil guys planned it pretty carefully. Over the next several days and weeks, please help spread the word about these two important things: Carly Fiorina and Prop 23 would be TERRIBLE for California’s environment and air quality, our clean energy future, and our economy. Both are supported by out-of-state, polluting fossil fuel interests. We should reject them both at the ballot box in November.
