Climate change deniers: A path to power?

The event is dubbed "Breakfast of Champions" by Washington Conservation Voters, but a lot of the talk Thursday was of chumps -- lawmakers blocking good deeds in this Washington, and polluters poised for power in D.C.

A scorecard highlights "Green Duds" in Olympia, legislators those who thwarted a modest tax on petroleum products, to be earmarked to cutdown stormwater runoff of toxics into Puget Sound.

"Despite serving a district that includes Whidbey Island, one of our state's natural treasures, Senator Mary Margaret Haugen voted against the environment at nearly every turn," it read. "She vigorously opposed clean energy, clean fuels, local transit options, renewable energy development and green jobs."

"As the Legislature's most vocal advocate for the oil and gas lobbyists, Senator Haugen was the single biggest obstacle in 2009 and 2010 to meaningful legislation that addresses stormwater runoff, the state's number one water pollution problem," it added.

Think Sen. Haugen, D-Camano, the "Belle of the BIAW", is bad? Look at some of the people set to take power in Congress and running for the U.S. Senate this November.

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy. Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

"We are in danger of electing many people to join Jim Inhofe in the Flat Earth Society of the U.S. Senate," Tony Massaro, senior vice president of League of Conservation Voters, told the breakfast.

Inhofe is the Oklahoma senator who called global warming "a hoax," traveled to Copenhagen to undercut President Obama's efforts to shape a climate accord, and harassed climate scientists as previous chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Ron Johnson, the Republicans' Senate nominee in Wisconsin, has blamed the Earth's climate change on sunspots.

Joe Miller, GOP Senate nominee in Alaska, has said he's found no real evidence that humans cause global warming. He might turn to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a study that included scientists from Alaska universities -- or NOAA's findings that summers in the past decade are the warmest on record.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is waiting in D.C. to reclaim chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, if his friend Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner waives a tenure limit.

Barton is a guy who apologized to BP last spring, saying it was the victim of a shakedown over establishing a Gulf compensation fund. Less known, he once tried to roll back all safeguards of Puget Sound against supertankers and tanker spills.

Liberated from spending limits by the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizen United decision, Big Oil, Big Coal and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have set out to buy the 2010 election. The Chamber -- Washington D.C.'s chief foe of climate legislation -- spent $10.5 million on TV buys in the last week. It has a goal of $75 million in its campaign to purchase Congress.

Big Coal and the Chamber love Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, and Paul loves them. He is a defender/advocate of mining that blows the tops off mountains. He took an accidents-do-happen view of the Gulf oil spill. After 29 West Virginia miners died in the Massey Coal disaster, Dr. Paul called for self-policing of safety at mines.

If mountains are eroding, and the Earth is evolving, why can't I see it, Christine O'Donnell, the Delaware Senate candidate, asked last week.

The temperature hit 113 recently in Los Angeles. Still, Texas oilmen (plus the Koch brothers) have put Prop. 23 on the California ballot, a bid to roll back the nation's most ambitious effort to control and limit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The environmental movement always fights best when its back is against the wall.

The Sierra Club went from 179,000 members to more than half-a-million while James Watt was Interior Secretary. A trio of Washington politicians were listed on the League of Conservation Voters' national "Dirty Dozen" list in the 1998 and 2000 elections. All three were defeated.

Alas, the "Breakfast of Champions" did not suggest a movement girding for battle. Attendance was noticeably down from years past. The speakers -- save for a fired-up Sen. Patty Murray -- did not inspire or explain what likely lies ahead.

Washington Conservation Voters needs to be much quicker at drawing crucial links. For instance, almost no mention was made Thursday of corporate-backed initiatives on the November ballot.

BP, Tesoro and other oil companies helped Tim Eyman get signatures for I-1053. The oil giants, who own Puget Sound refineries, were purchasing an insurance policy. Under I-1053, two-thirds majorities in the Legislature would be needed to pass revenue measures. A stormwater cleanup fee will NEVER pass.

Americans have seen 350,000 TV spots in this year's Senate races, with perhaps half of them purchased by corporate-fueled committees fueled by Citizens United.

Somebody has to point behind the TV screen and get the public to ask questions about what really goes on in this country.

Why do we have an unsustainable, fossil fuel dependent energy policy? Why is the status quo subsidized here while China moves to world leadership in wind and solar power? Why is Amerca addicted to oil imports from unstable corners of the globe? What are the costs to the lungs of our children, to Gulf fishers, and to the Earth our children and grandchildren will inherit?

It's kind of like "Lord of the Rings." A movement that's created national parks and wilderness areas should be able to light fires on mountaintops.