Senate Rejects Big Oil Bailout, Affirms Climate Science

WASHINGTON (June 10, 2010) -- By a vote of 53-47, the Senate today rejected a bid by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to veto modern climate science, reverse a Supreme Court decision, and block use of the Clean Air Act to combat the threat of climate change.  

Following is a statement from Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council:

"Today the Senate voted down a misguided step backwards. Now it needs to continue moving forward, this summer, to pass comprehensive legislation that curbs our dependence on oil, puts limits on carbon pollution, and puts America on the path to a clean energy future.”  

“That is what the American people want. A recent poll from Yale and George Mason universities shows that 77 percent of Americans support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. This is a six-point increase in six months.

“With today’s vote, a majority of the Senate chose to side with the American people, not Big Oil; with a clean energy future, not a dirty energy past; and with science, not science deniers.

“The Gulf Coast disaster only adds to the reasons why the Senate needs to step up and adopt comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this summer.  

“With the worst environmental disaster in American history unfolding before our very eyes in the Gulf, now was not the time for a Big Oil bailout that increases our dependence on oil.  But by blocking EPA’s historic clean car standards, Sen. Murkowski’s measure would have sacrificed 455 million barrels of oil savings from those standards.  At $3 per gallon of gasoline, this vote saves American consumers more than $57 billion that they would have had to pay out to Big Oil and OPEC.”