Protesters say Perriello’s vote will cost jobs
Calling U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello a “traitor” and a “coward,” roughly 125 protesters picketed the freshman Democrat’s Charlottesville office Thursday to denounce Perriello’s vote for an energy bill that aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
The protesters were angry that Perriello supported the American Clean Energy and Security Act — also known as “cap and trade” — that they said would cost millions of jobs and burden consumers with higher electricity bills in the name of promoting clean energy and reducing global warming.
“We will take our country back and set it back on its intended course,” said Keith Drake, chairman of the Albemarle Truth in Taxation Alliance and a member of the Jefferson Area Tea Party organization. “We’re doing this for our children and we’re doing it for our grandchildren.”
Perriello, who did not attend the protest, defended his vote in favor of the bill, a measure that he said would create numerous jobs, tackle climate change, strengthen national security and reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.
“This is going to be a great win for Central and Southside Virginia,” Perriello said.
Legislators such as Perriello, the protesters complained, could not possibly have weighed the full implications of the massive 1,200-page bill that narrowly passed the House late last week.
The Jefferson Area Tea Party sponsored Thursday’s protest. The group held a rally at the Charlottesville Pavilion on April 15 to criticize what its members consider to be out-of-control taxing and spending by the federal government.
In the crowd at Thursday’s protest, there were several yellow Gadsden flags that depict a coiled rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” Protesters held signs with such slogans as: “Hooray!! Another Political Prostitute;” “Tom Perriello is a Cap + Traitor;” and “Perriello — An Incompetent, Cowardly, Treasonous Fellow.”
Charlottesville resident Betty Sevachko said the federal government is “throwing her under the bus” with taxes and higher energy costs.
“I’m not going to let them take everything I have worked so hard for,” she said.
One protester questioned whether climate change is real, prompting a loud cheer from the crowd. “It’s a way to control us!” one man yelled.
During Perriello’s successful bid to unseat Republican Virgil H. Goode Jr. last year, one of Perriello’s top campaign promises was to position the 5th District — which stretches from the Charlottesville area down to Danville and Martinsville — at the forefront of the nation’s emerging green energy economy.
“Americans are looking for leadership and solutions,” Perriello said. “The only people against this were oil executives, Saudi princes and energy lobbyists. It wasn’t a hard decision.”
Opponents of the bill, Perriello said, are distorting the facts to further their agenda and score cheap political points. Energy costs may go up for some, he said, but costs will go down for many.
He cited a Congressional Budget Office study that found that the legislation would cost the average household $175 or less in 2020, not including any energy-efficiency savings.
“The reality is that the most people will pay is a postage stamp a day,” Perriello said.
Perriello is one of 13 Democrats in swing districts being targeted by an ad blitz by the National Republican Congressional Committee because of their support of cap-and-trade. While the NRCC has bought radio ads and is making phone calls against other Democrats, Perriello is the only congressman being targeted with TV ads.
“Tom Perriello’s vote for a job-killing national energy tax that will raise consumer costs in the midst of a recession is nothing short of appalling,” said Andy Sere, the NRCC’s regional press secretary. “The fact of the matter is, Tom Perriello proved with last week’s vote that he is categorically hostile to the values of the working families of Central and Southside Virginia.”
Perriello, Sere said, will “pay a political price next year.”
On Thursday, the NRCC’s ad against Perriello came under fire. The nonpartisan Factcheck.org found that the NRCC ad exaggerated claims against the legislation, such as the size of energy cost increases for families.
The NRCC bought airtime for the ad in the Roanoke and Lynchburg markets. According to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, WDBJ-TV of Roanoke declined to run the ad after seeing the questions raised about the ad’s accuracy.
“The NRCC has a track record of running ads so deceptive and misleading that local TV stations refuse to air them or have to remove from the airwaves,” Jessica Santillo, a regional press secretary with the DCCC, said in a statement.
“Clearly, Washington Republicans realize that the truth is not on their side so they resort to deceptive and false attack ads. Virginians deserve to hear the facts about how this bill will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, not be subject to scare tactics.”
The energy bill now heads to the U.S. Senate for consideration, though no exact date has yet been set.
The Jefferson Area Tea Party is planning another protest at 1 p.m. Saturday at Jackson Park in downtown Charlottesville.
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Cap and Trade is a market-based response to corporations that want and need to pollute in order to make more money, and are willing to pay for the privilege. Yes, it would have been better if the revenue from these pollution transactions had reverted to the tax payer, but we can take solace that the cap and trade approach requires a steady reduction until no other trades can be made. The peculiar thing is that conservatives seem to shout their support for free-market economics except when it threatens the industries that are based on hydrocarbons. How odd.
Funny how you leftwing nuts always sneer at any protests that would dare question the b.s. you spread…it tells me you’re scared to death the truth will get out! And the truth is there’s NO MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING! It’s just an attempt by libbies to stop capitalism and replace our society with Socialist and eventually, Communist ways of life. For every scientist you cite for your “cause”, I can cite one that proves this is just a hoax. And when that has happened, the leftie nuts attack the political background or supposed “connection” to Conservatives, but don’t try to dispute the actual facts…why is that? BECAUSE YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
This article quotes Congressman Perriello as saying: “The only people against this were oil executives, Saudi princes and energy lobbyists.“
Progress readers not familiar with the climate change debate deserve to know that if this quote is correct, then what their congressional representative is not telling them is not the truth.
In fact, many diverse individuals and organizations object to the climate change legislation Perriello voted for.
Roy Innis, the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), said that “the underlying goal of this legislation is the morally repugnant concept that constricting sources of domestic energy and raising energy costs is a good thing because it will force conservation by consumers. That elitist view assumes that poor, working class families have the ability to bear that ‘social cost.‘“
And Greenpeace, one of the most famous environmental organizations in the world, issued a statement urging members of Congress to vote down the bill. The statement said, in part: d: “Despite President Obama’s assurance that he would enact strong, science-based legislation, we are now watching him put his full support behind a bill that chooses politics over science, elevates industry interests over national interest, and shows the significant limitations of what this Congress believes is possible.“
Sorry, forgot to point out that observations of global warming do not prove causation of warming. Carbon dioxide could be one of several causes.
There as been a gradual global warming since 1850 at the end of the “Little Ice Age.“ Ever wonder why that ice age ended without the help of SUVs etc.? Ever wonder why the scientists and media were in a documented panic over the proclaimed “coming ice age” of the 1970s even as carbon dioxide levels were increasing?
Go check you Alaska glacier facts and you will find scientists reporting “Alaska Glaciers Growing for the First Time in 250 Years” last October (2008).
Enjoy.
Javaguy;
Next time you link a reference to a comment, you could do a lot better than the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (with a whopping 8 members on it’s faculty, none of whom are client scientists and 2 of which have been dead for several years). Not exactly what most folks would consider peer reviewed research. As for your assertion about new evidence from a German survey team or the Swedish Met Office, that directly contradicts this;
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/apr/HQ_09-079_Sea_ice_thins.html
I am afraid the chance to take action to ameliorate the worst of climate change has come and gone. Those who come after us are going to live with the consequences of our inaction. But don’t worry, Java. I am sure there will lots more tea parties for you to attend, where you can rant and rave all you like about the NWO, Liberals, Environmentalists, Socialised Medicine or whatever wigged out conspiracy theory you care to jump for.
Pete Deer
The severe retreat of mountain glaciers on every continent is not in dispute. There’s far more to explain than a frozen leopard emerging from the ice on a mountaintop in Africa, Mr. Haye. The data is the same from Alaska (also experiencing severe permafrost loss from warming), to Switzerland and Austria (where glaciers have retreated many miles up the valleys), to the Himalayas (where the headwaters of Asia’s greatest rivers are threatened by the loss of their source), to Montana (where Glacier National Park has about half the glaciated area it had a century back and is on track to lose the rest within a few decades).
It requires no scientific credentials to witness all this. Nor can the brute physical fact of it be debunked. To deny this plain reality one must render oneself literally senseless, and turn away from truth.
If this is all, everywhere, caused by changes in farming patterns per your hypothesis, that would also be man-made climate change. It’s not the more obvious hypothesis though. Global precipitation records do not support it.
Oh dear, Mr. Deer, as the global temperature record for June has just recorded another month of cooling, perhaps you might also cool it. I also hope that you might be reassured by the Danish Meterological Institute report that the “arctic sea temperature is still not above 0C- the latest date in 50 years of record keeping.“ Artic sea ice is at its 30 year average, and recent reports by a German survey team reveales ice thickness to be up to twice as thick as previously recorded.
Mr. Gore’s Kilimanjaro scare was debunked over a year ago by a National Science Foundation funded study as reported in “Artic, Antartic, and Alpine Research.“ The scientists reported that the lack of moisture at the perpetually frozen peak is responsible for any lack of snow loss. They attributed native farming inroads along the base of the mountain to a subsequent loss of moisture at the summit. They noted that global warming would provide more moisture and cause the snow cover to increase, not decrease.
You seem unaware that “dirty oil money” funds many of the environmentalists’ favorite foundations. Pew Charitable Trusts/Sun Oil; Rockefeller Foundation/Standard Oil; United Nations IPCC/Maurice Strong-Canadian oil magnate;Alton Jones/Cities Service Oil company.
Have a cool and pleasant Independence Day.
Hey, Javaguy, would this be an example of someone engaging in slander and not debate?
“In the crowd at Thursday’s protest, there were several yellow Gadsden flags that depict a coiled rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” Protesters held signs with such slogans as: “Hooray!! Another Political Prostitute;” “Tom Perriello is a Cap + Traitor;” and “Perriello — An Incompetent, Cowardly, Treasonous Fellow.”“
Just for the record, I’m not much of a liberal at all. I pretty much follow the Anarchist line myself. And in fact, the bill that Mr Periello voted for didn’t go far enough in terms of reducing Greenhouse gas levels. As for the damage it may cause to the economy, 30 years of fiscal insanity and free market, laisez fair crony capitalism perpetrated by allegedly conservative and liberal politicians alike has pretty much killed our nation’s ability to produce things of value. And do you really think science by petition is good way to engage in a healthy debate? I’ve seen that petition before, but a closer look at it’s supporters reveals not too many climate scientist have signed it at all. Oh yeah, there’s plenty of folks with advanced degrees in economics and medicine that have signed on, but do they really know what they are talking about. The science behind this issue is complex, and difficult to understand for the lay person not trained in it. However, the fact remains that a preponderance of the worlds climate scientists believe that anthropogenic climate change is a very serious threat to our ability to survive on this planet.
In the meantime, the glaciers in the Andes, Alps and Himalayas dispear, the Arctic will be ice in summer in a few years, and large sections of Antarctic ice shelves are breaking away into the southern seas. This while Exxon-Mobil pays academics turned prostitutes to submit ‘scholarly works’ discounting the possiblity the planet could be warming to a dangerous degree, all the while the planet keeps basting in its own juices. But don’t worry, Javaguy. The fix is in. No government on this planet, especially one as corrupt and inept as our own, is going to do anything beyond sound bites and window dressing to fix it. It’s an awful mess we are going to be leaving behind for our kids. But what do you care as long as you get cheap gas and drive as fast you like…
Pete Deer
Twelve of the hottest years on record occurred since 1996 and the trend is inexorably upward. Simply stated, there is no rational argument against curbing CO2 emissions, and the people who advocate for ignoring impending climate disaster to protect their wallets lack basic sense. Jobs can be created just as easily around solar, geothermal, wind, and hydroelectric. We should not depend on dirty coal and oil products, and if we continue down this traditionalist path, we do so at our peril.
No folks, the enviornmental crazies outdo the modest protests of yesterday. NASA climatologist and Al Gore advisor has been to England in mock funeral marches to bury coal, has lead protests in Washington DC during a snow storm to protest global warming, and routinely labels anyone disagreeing with him as a “holocaust denier.“ His own 1988 predictions of ten foot rises in ocean levels by 1998 have proved to be false, yet he continues with disaster predictions by moving the climate goal posts forward into the unknowable future.
How about doing some real homework on this? Go back to the Club of Rome founding in 1968 and read: “The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming…would fit the bill. ...The real enemy then, is humanity itself.“
Try Timothy Worth, President of the UN Foundation: We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing.“
The UN Climate Change Panel acknowledges that there has been a plateau in global warming since 1998; all four internatonal global temperature agencies document a global cooling for six plus years as carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise. Most folks would call that a non correlation of carbon dioxide levels and global temperature.
Carbon dioxide is the selected proxy for energy; control of energy is the key to control economic development. This has very little to do with climate but everything to do with political and economic control.
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