Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Gomez is Just as “Green” as George W. Bush

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Gabriel Gomez called himself a “green Republican” in yesterday’s debate. Here’s a response from Drew Grande, the Sierra Club’s Massachusetts organizer:

We already knew Gabriel Gomez was relying on Mitch McConnell to help him rake in corporate campaign cash, but apparently Gomez needed McConnell’s political playbook, too. The only way Gomez can claim to be a ‘green republican’ while supporting the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline is if he subscribes to the same disingenuous political tactics that McConnell has used to throw the Senate into disarray for years. If Gomez has a problem with people in his party like McConnell denying science, maybe he should stop denying reality and oppose the Keystone XL pipeline that would put our nation at risk while making our climate crisis worse.

The Sierra Club is proud to support Ed Markey – the one candidate in this race who has consistently stood up for climate action that will create new clean energy jobs in the Commonwealth while securing a safe, healthy future for generations to come.

Given that Gomez is completely incoherent on climate and energy, I’m not at all surprised that he would say he’s green in one breath and wants to deepen our addiction to climate-disrupting dirty fuels in the next.

But the more cynical would compare Gomez to George W. Bush. Gomez, like Bush, has invested heavily in dirty energy. And Gomez, like Bush, claims to understand climate science while not wanting to do a single thing to cut carbon pollution and continuing to let oil & coal lobbyists write America’s energy policies.

Ed Markey is making climate action – cutting carbon pollution to protect current and future generations from the worst impacts of climate change, safeguarding our vulnerable coastlines from superstorms like Sandy, and creating good-paying clean energy jobs – one of his campaign’s top priorities. Want to tell voters who the real green candidate is in this race? Volunteer for Ed this weekend.

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Comments

  1. Saying global warming is real is enough to qualify as a “green Republican.” They set the bar kinda low.

  2. Just posted at ThinkProgress:

    While Gomez and his staff are quick to note that he trusts the scientific community and acknowledges that humans are at least partially to blame for the planet’s warming, he is light on any specifics about what he would do to mitigate the worsening effects of worldwide climate change.

    On his campaign website, Gomez outlines his desire for “rational” solutions to climate change, and hits “politicians in Washington” for their support of solutions that are, in his estimation, “not rational.” Nowhere is a list of the legislation that he would pursue as a Senator to combat climate change, or even an outline of broader policy recommendations.

    Instead, in almost every instance in which Gomez discusses the environment, it is immediately followed by an equally unwavering endorsement of the Keystone XL pipeline as a job creator, a pathway to lower energy costs, and, alarmingly, environmentally friendly.

    In reality, it is none of those things. As few as 35 permanent jobs will be created by the KXL pipeline, recent reports suggest it could actually increase U.S. fuel costs, and the detrimental environmental impacts of its construction have been well-documented.

    Beyond that, Team Gomez is just stonewalling. Further, from the same Think Progress item:

    ThinkProgress spent three days following the Gomez campaign last month, and at half a dozen different campaign stops refused to answer a single question on his environmental policy, or anything else.

    Will Ritter, the campaign’s communications director, did take a few minutes to discuss Gomez’s environmental policies during a campaign stop in Cohasset, MA, but was equally noncommittal. When asked if the campaign could provide any specific policy positions related to climate change, he responded by asking us to list specific proposals.

    Cap and trade? “We can take a look at that, sure.”

    A carbon tax? “We don’t currently don’t have a policy on the matter, not that I’m aware of.”

    Higher fuel emissions standards? “It honestly has not been asked yet. It’s not an issue we’ve come across in any interview.”

    “You can email me, and we’ll sit down with him when we do our policy to find out where he is and we can get you some answers back,” he said.

    ThinkProgress reached out to Ritter via email multiple times with the same requests for Gomez’s positions on any number of climate-related issues, and despite the promise to provide some answers on Gomez’s climate policy, we have yet to receive any response.

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