Climate ads target Murkowski, Pomeroy

Environmental groups are launching ad campaigns attacking efforts by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) to block EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

The National Wildlife Federation Action Fund is spending over $100,000 on a television ad to run on Washington, D.C. cable stations and broadcast stations in Alaska beginning Wednesday and lasting up to a week.

The ad targets Murkowski's proposal -- which she may offer on the Senate floor this week -- that would freeze EPA work on rules to curb emissions from power plants, factories and other sources.

The ad contrasts smokestacks with the effects of climate change on Alaska, showing melting ice falling into the sea.

"The big polluters want to keep spewing carbon pollution. So their lobbyists wrote a loophole to gut the Clean Air Act and they are pushing Lisa Murkowski to help them," states the ad, which encourages viewers to call Murkowski's office and urge her to "put Alaska first, not the polluter lobby."

Murkowski has the option of offering an amendment on debt ceiling legislation the Senate takes up Wednesday, but has not said whether she will use the chance. She may hold off and pursue another route -- a formal "resolution of disapproval" under the Congressional Review Act -- to block planned emissions rules that she believes would cause economic harm, her office said earlier this week.

Separately, Friends of the Earth Action Fund began a $10,000, two-day radio ad buy in Alaska and North Dakota Tuesday, spokesman Nick Berning said. It will run on five stations in Anchorage, Alaska and four in Fargo, North Dakota, he said.

The Alaska ad says global warming will harm the state's economy, but adds that Murkowski is "more interested in working for Washington lobbyists and special interests" than protecting the state.

Pomeroy recently introduced a bill that would prevent EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.

“Drought… unstable weather… crop damage… the economy threatened,” the North Dakota ad states. “But Congressman Earl Pomeroy isn’t paying attention.  Maybe it’s because he’s been spending too much time in Washington with the lobbyists and special interests.”

Berning said the ad buy could be extended or moved to target other lawmakers.