Activists want senators to vote 'no' on climate amendment

Activists want senators to vote 'no' on climate amendment

Jun 9 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Jim Nolan Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

With a Richmond BP station as a backdrop, a dozen environmental activists yesterday urged Virginia's U.S. senators to vote against a legislative amendment that they say amounts to a bailout for big oil.

Senators are expected to vote tomorrow on the amendment introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing climate regulations.

The peaceful protesters -- wearing "oil barrels" made from canvas laundry bags -- staked out the corner of Cary and Meadow streets, toting signs with messages addressed to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. "Sen. Webb, Are You With Us Or Big Oil?" read one sign. Another said, "Aren't You Concerned About The Gulf?"

Webb "is reviewing the amendment, but has not made a decision about how he will vote," said Webb spokesman Will Jenkins. Kevin Hall, communications director for Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., said Warner intends to vote "no" on the Murkowski amendment.

The White House, citing the environmental damage caused by the gulf oil spill, yesterday threatened to veto the bill, saying it would increase the nation's dependence on oil and other fossil fuels and "block efforts to cut pollution that threatens our health and well-being."

But a dozen Republicans, including Murkowski, argued at a news conference yesterday that the EPA regulations, when implemented next year, would both kill jobs and usurp the authority of Congress.

Senators will make "a statement as to whether or not Congress or unelected bureaucrats at the EPA should set climate policy for this country," she said.

"This is an attempt to turn the attention of the American people away from what's happening with respect to the oil spill and saying what we really should be doing to protect the environment is give all of this new power to the EPA," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

In Richmond, demonstration organizer J.R. Tolbert said the measure "would gut the Clean Air Act by limiting the EPA's authority to regulate carbon emissions."

Tolbert, of the nonprofit group Environment Virginia, said eliminating the recently issued fuel standards on cars and light trucks for 2012-2016 would also remove the steep penalties for noncompliance set forth in the Clean Air Act and hamstring the EPA from setting future standards on light-duty vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles after 2016.

Tolbert said Virginians' consumption of oil would increase 13 million gallons by 2016 if the resolution were adopted. But neither Tolbert, nor the demonstrators, many of them young adults who frequent the station and its convenience store, said they are advocating a boycott of their local station.

"BP is the personification of Big Oil right now," said Tolbert, 30. "They've been bad corporate citizens. We have no problems with the guys in the store. It's the people at the top of the logo."

Tolbert said the demonstration, which drew supporting honks from cars passing by the station on Cary Street, was just one of a number of protests scheduled over the next two days in 12 states to raise awareness and put pressure on senators ahead of the vote on the Murkowski amendment.

Station owner Arati Shah said she was not upset by the activity. She said the negative publicity drawn to the BP name as a result of the gulf oil spill hadn't hurt business, either.

"We sold more gas this holiday weekend than we did last year," she said.

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or jnolan@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writer Jeff E. Schapiro and The Associated Press contributed to this report.