Buck shifts climate debate from science to economy in attack on Sen. Bennet

Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck is looking to divert attention away from his skepticism of climate change science by launching an economy-focused attack on Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.
 
Buck — facing criticism from Bennet over his doubts that humans are to blame for climate change — is now going after Bennet for not backing efforts to block or stall Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas regulations.

“Appointed Senator Bennet is President Obama’s strongest ally in the US Senate for imposing job-killing greenhouse gas regulations through the EPA,” Buck’s campaign said in an e-mail to E2. “This approach, even more extreme than cap-and-trade legislation that died in the Senate, would mean Obama’s EPA would be regulating sources in Colorado including schools, nursing homes, and churches, to name a few.”
 
While the e-mail does not cite specific votes, a source at the campaign said they are focused on Bennet’s opposition to a resolution from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) blocking EPA climate regulations and the fact that he is not a co-sponsor of a plan from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) delaying the rules for two years.
 
Bennet this summer voted against the Murkowski resolution, which attracted only six Democrats and failed 47-53. There has not yet been a vote on the Rockefeller plan, though that might occur during a post-election lame-duck session.
 
Buck, meanwhile, has had to clarify his stance on climate change after Bennet leapt on his claim made Wednesday that evidence supports Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) view that global warming is a hoax. Buck spokesman Owen Loftus later told The Denver Post, “Ken believes there is global warming but thinks the evidence points to it being natural rather than man-made.”
 
Inhofe has often taken to the Senate floor and elsewhere — including a very brief visit to last December’s U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen — to argue global warming is not real. 

The dominant view among climate scientists is that warming is occurring and that carbon emissions from burning coal and oil, among other human activities, are spurring the hotter temperatures.
 
Bennet’s camp in an e-mail to E2 Friday focused on Buck’s “extreme positions — when he can actually figure out what they are.” Those positions “are rooted in politics not science and would serve only to gut the Clean Air Act, cost us millions of jobs and increase our reliance on oil from the Persian Gulf," campaign spokesman Michael Amodeo said. His “latest display of anti-science politics is just another desperate attempt to change the subject and divert attention from his own extreme record,” he added.
 
Bennet alleges Buck’s position on climate is at odds with the economic benefits of developing low-carbon energy sources.
 
Buck’s push back also comes amid a barrage of activity in the race by environmental groups.
 
The League of Conservation Voters on Friday announced another $200,000 investment toward a TV campaign accusing Buck of attempting a “water grab” in pushing for a failed 2003 ballot initiative in Colorado that proposed issuing $2 billion in state bonds for unspecified water projects. The group initially unveiled and began running the ad last week.

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