Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has received more than $124,500 in donations from clients of an energy lobbyist involved with drafting a controversial environmental amendment.Several months ago, Murkowski's staff reached out to two lobbyists — Bracewell & Giuliani's Jeffrey Holmstead and Sidley Austin's Roger Martella Jr., — for technical assistance on how to craft the amendment, which would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
Holstead's clients include Duke Energy, CSX, Progress Energy, Southern Co. and other top utility and energy companies that would be deeply impacted financially by climate regulations.
Several of those companies rank amid Murkowski's top donors. Over the course of her career, the senator has received $38,000 from Southern Co. and $22,550 from Duke Energy, according to research by ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. In total, Murkowski has received more than $126,500 from Holmstead's firm, clients, and employees, since 2004. Neither Holmstead or Martella made any personal donations to Murkowski.
Holmstead said he had no knowledge of the donations.
"I don't know anything about my client's campaign contributions," he said. "I don't even know about any campaign contributions my firm may have done."
Okay let me get this straight. I am supposed to believe that the LOBBYIST for these companies has NO IDEA whose political campaign they contribute to? If you buy that then I have an idea for a bridge to Gravina Island I would like to interest you in.
It is no accident that Senator Murkowski is prostituting herself to the energy lobby. She is after all her father's daughter. The senior Murkowski knew what he was doing when he appointed Lisa to his old senatorial seat. She was raised to understand how to utilize backroom deals and play political grab ass with lobbyists.
"Daddy's little Senator" has a very important job to do for her father and the Big Energy good old boys. And that is why she gets the lionesses share of the oil and gas lobby money. They know Frank raised his little darling to play ball with them, and clearly she learned her lessons well.
And just how badly has Murkowski sold out her Alaskan constituents in favor of the lobbyists?
"It's a highly political move, and a highly hazardous one to our health and the environment," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday. "If this senator succeeds, it could keep Congress from working constructively in a bipartisan manner to pass clean energy legislation this year. That's why I will work hard to defeat this misguided amendment."
You know personally I would like to thank Senator Murkowski for her work on Alaska's behalf. And I think I will do just that in this next election cycle.
But don't worry about Murkowski if she loses, there is always room for another energy lobbyist in the world. Isn't working for their favorite lobby where ALL unethical politicians end up?
Do you sit around watching videos of Lisa too ?
ReplyDeleteAnd this surprises us how?
ReplyDeleteARG poll
ReplyDeleteBrown 48%
Coakely 45%
shitstorm in Massachusetts
Murkowski and Palin are both in the same line of work. The only difference between them is that Lisa is an INTELLIGENT and very EFFECTIVE prostitute whose clientele comes from a slightly higher socio-economic class.
ReplyDeleteIf we the voters aren't the peeps of these people in Washington we need to get some solid new ones in there. Somebody who knows and cares about how federal laws are impacting the Alaskan individuals. If you don't care about that...get out. Take a cruise.
ReplyDeleteWe do need to be concerned when lobbyists who represent certain industries craft legislation instead of the politicians we send to Congress because the legislation favors the industry, not the citizens. Recently, information came to light that the republicans in Congress took all of their cues from health care corporations in forming their opposition to HCR. And, yes, Anon.@ 8:40AM, we need to keep our eyes on ALL of the members of Congress. We pay their salaries, and they're supposed to be working on our behalf, not the corporations. Senator Murkowski's goal is to undermine powers that the EPA has so that the energy industry remains unregulated and can continue to pollute at will. IMHO, it indicates that she doesn't care about the health and welfare of our citizens, only the profits of the energy companies. Deregulation of the financial industry was a direct cause of the financial meltdown in 2008. I don't trust any corporation or lobbyist to act in the best interests of the citizens because that's not their goal. Their goal is to make as much money as possible any way they can, and d@mn the people they may hurt in doing it. We are considered a collateral damage of their right to conduct their businesses as they see fit. For me, this is unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteWay to stick it to her Gryphen. ADN and KTUU will skip this story of course.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see a disclosure of her finacial status before she became a Senator and when she leaves office. Me thinks that she will have enriched herself!
ReplyDeleteI listened to Lisa on the radio this week and it is obvious where her values are and thats not with the people she is supposed to represent. Corporations rule and Lisa needs a vacation.
ReplyDeletebusiness as usual I guess. Lesson not learned. Ben Stevens where are you?
ReplyDeleteGo to TPMmuckacker Brown in MA no health insurance for workers. All independant Contactors, no payroll taxes either. Spread this article around please!!!1
ReplyDeleteIs this the best we can do...really? We've got to progress that delegation from Alaska if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteFace it Gryphen, most Americans by a wide margin don't believe in anthropogenic global warming or climate change. That effectively puts an end to the debate and therefore all we can do is wait for the consequences to prove them wrong. Consequences on America specifically because other countries suffering is not important enough to Americans to change any minds.
ReplyDeleteBetter to not waste time worrying about it anymore, just let it happen.
She's so popular she even got $500 from Bob Poe two years ago - even Democrats are giving her money!
ReplyDeleteSay, do you know anyone ELSE who wants this job? Does he/she have a pac? Does he/she do anything else? I pity Alaska.
ReplyDeleteGET HER OUTTA THERE!
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised, there's an 'R' behind her name. And lobbyists have their hands in everything, it's not just the environmental laws.
ReplyDeleteLobbyists helped write some of the statutes in the HCR bill, too. While their client corporations were promoting fear mongering against the Federal Government.
I am a person with a disability, and the statutes that should have benefitted me as an American with a disability, benefitted the corporations instead. Every last one of them.
I think lobbying should be outlawed. It gives a corporation a voice louder than mine.
Thanks so much for posting this on your blog Gryphen! It's a very good and comprehensive overview, and I love your refusal to mince words when it comes to calling out Senator Murkowski's motivations!
ReplyDeleteHobbling the ability of the EPA to regulate - which is what they are in existence to do, in order to protect public health and well-being - is a terrible, evil plan.
This is an important precedent because we need to reduce emissions of CO2, which is the primary greenhouse gas contributing to gradual average warming that leads to melting glaciers and water shortages, melting ice caps and rising sea level, as well as wild weather.
But we may also need EPA to regulate the "other" greenhouse gases - nitrous oxides and sulfur dioxides - which are the precursors to ozone and acid rain. These are invisible but deadly toxins that cause asthma, emphysema, and cancer, and trigger cardiovascular failure. How many of us know someone with these problems?
These same volatile organic compounds, as well as emissions from biofuels, are also extremely poisonous to vegetation - trees, and annual crops. At a time when unpredictable weather is causing crop reductions, and the world population is growing, we can't afford even more damage to our source of food from atmospheric toxins.
It's time to completely rethink our approach to producing energy and that doesn't mean drill, baby, drill.
Photographs of damage to trees and other plants, and links to scientific research, at www.witsendnj.blogspot.com
Who's your daddy Lisa?
ReplyDelete"During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush neutralized Al Gore’s pledge to restrict planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions by promising to do the same himself. It may go down as one of history’s more fateful lies. After “winning” the election, Bush promptly reneged on his promise. In March 2001, Bush went one better and, without even telling his EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, declared that the U.S. would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. There followed eight long years of mulish, intractable stalling from the U.S. on climate change. The world community’s pleas for leadership were spurned and precious time was frittered away. Now the level of effort needed to reduce emissions in time to avert catastrophe is steeper, the political problem thornier. Damn you, butterfly ballots!"
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-21-the-top-green-stories-of-the-00s/PALL/