Dueling Ads Highlight the Politics of Climate-Change Legislation
Groups on both sides of the spectrum have begun hitting the airwaves with new advertisements on climate-change legislation, underscoring the political ramifications going forward of the House’s razor-thin passage of the major climate and energy bill just a week ago.
The latest, released on Thursday by the Environmental Defense Fund, defends a group of mostly Democratic House members who voted for the climate-change legislation, which passed the House 219-212. These ads are offering a counterpoint to a set by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which aimed at 14 Democrats in mostly swing congressional districts who voted for the bill. Labor-affiliated groups, too, have begun a series of ads — mostly on cable in Washington, D.C., pressuring lawmakers on the issue.
The stream of advertisements precedes and in fact, highlights, the rocky landscape facing the issue of climate-change legislation as it moves into more divisive territory in the Senate. In addition, these campaigns offer a prelude to the mix of issues that will be at the forefront of the 2010 midterm elections.
The E.D.F. ads will support, among others, Representative Dave Reichert of Washington, one of the eight Republicans to vote for the bill, and Representatives Tom Perriello of Virginia and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, both freshman Democrats chosen as targets by the N.R.C.C. campaign.
So far, Mr. Perriello, who narrowly unseated a longtime Republican incumbent last year, is the only member the N.R.C.C. chose to oppose with a TV ad. The rest are radio ads.
As The Times’s Andrea Fuller reported on Wednesday, that Republican campaign says that household energy bills would increase by $1,870 per year under the climate bill, a contention heatedly disputed by Democrats and nonpartisan organizations like FactCheck.org. (The Congressional Budget Office, for instance, estimates $175 in extra costs to the average American household, though those in higher tax brackets can expect to pay more.)
A television station in Roanoke, Va., has decided not to run the ad against Mr. Perriello, though an executive at WDBJ.TV would not explain its decision, stressing that the station did not call it “false or misleading.”
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