Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

Graham: Not a Climate Wussypants

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jan. 6, 2010 2:38 PM PST

As noted earlier, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is taking heat from the right-most members of his party for his stance on climate change legislation. But at an event in his home state yesterday, Graham held firm on his belief that addressing climate change "is a worthy endeavor" – even for Republicans.

"I have come to conclude that greenhouse gases and carbon pollution is not a good thing," Graham told the crowd in Columbia, S.C. yesterday. "All the cars and trucks and plants that have been in existence since the Industrial Revolution, spewing out carbon day-in and day-out, will never convince me that's a good thing for your children and the future of the planet."

"Whatever political push back I get I'm willing to accept because I know what I'm trying to do makes sense to me," Graham said. "I am convinced that reason, logic and good business sense, and good environmental policy, will trump the status quo."

Of course, there's been plenty of fretting over what Graham wants in return for his support for the bill (I have engaged in some of that myself). But he really has put himself out there on an issue that most in his party either actively deny is happening or otherwise just ignore. And as a thanks, he's taking jabs from the tea partiers (who have called him a "wussypants," "girly-man," and "half-a-sissy") and getting censured by Ron Paul acolytes. Not that legislators automatically get a gold star for simply believing in basic climate science, but Graham should get some credit for standing firm on climate amid the attacks from the right.

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Cape Wind Delay a Big Win for Dirty Energy Interests

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jan. 6, 2010 1:35 PM PST

Cape Wind, the hotly contested proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, suffered a major setback on Monday when the National Park Service (NPS) announced that the site should be eligible for protection as a historical place. While the decision is being touted as a victory for two Massachusetts Native American tribes, the big winners may well be the dirty energy interests that have been working for nearly a decade to block the project.

The determination that the Nantucket Sound is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which Andy Kroll wrote about over on Blue Marble, is only the latest setback for the proposed 24-square-mile, 130-turbine wind farm that would be the first offshore project in the US.

The New York Times gave a good rundown on this latest roadblock, which was spurred by a request from two local tribes that claim the turbines would impede their religious practice by blocking the view of the sunrise and intrude on historic burial grounds. But what the Times fails to mention is that the bulk of the opposition to Cape Wind over the years has come from a multimillion-dollar campaign backed by oil and gas money—not Native Americans trying to protect territory they regard as sacred. At the forefront of the effort has been William Koch, who alone has spent more than a million to oppose the farm via a group called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

Koch is the founder and president of the Oxbow Group, and has made his fortune off mining and marketing coal, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum coke products. He's the son of Fred Koch, founder of oil and gas giant Koch Industries, and brother of David and Charles Koch—who have supported conservative groups like Citizens for a Sound Economy (which later merged with another group to form FreedomWorks) and Americans for Prosperity, which has campaigned against both climate legislation and health care reform. Bill Koch used to work for the family business, but split off in the early '80s, prompting a nasty feud with his brothers business that dragged on for nearly two decades. In that time, however, he built a dirty energy empire all his own, which has helped fund his Cape Wind crusade.

The Alliance was founded in 2001 with the sole purpose of defeating the wind farm. Koch, a billionaire fossil-fuel tycoon and yacht enthusiast, has given at least $1.5 million to the Alliance and related efforts to defeat the project (as of 2006, that is—how much he's given since then is unknown), which would be visible from his home in the Cape Cod town of Osterville. Doug Yearley, the former CEO of mining giant Phelps Dodge and a member of Marathon Oil's board of directors, was also highly involved in the Alliance up until his death in 2007.

Koch and his wealthy friends in the area are responsible for more than 90 percent of the contributions to the Alliance, and fundraising documents released in 2006 showed that those major donors gave between $20,000 and $1 million each. In just the last three years the Alliance has brought in $8.6 million, according to its IRS forms. It has spent $2 to $3 million a year to fight Cape Wind. In a 2008 fundraising letter to its wealthy supporters, the Alliance promised that it "will do what whatever it takes to win. We will never allow Cape Wind to become a reality." Despite all the income from well-heeled dirty energy interests like Koch and Yearley, the Alliance describes itself on its tax forms as a "nonprofit environmental organization."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Will the Revolving Door Take Dorgan to Coal Country?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jan. 6, 2010 10:59 AM PST

One nugget buried in Byron Dorgan's official statement on retirement caught my attention: the three-term senator plans to do work on energy policy from the private sector after finishing his term.

Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life. I have written two books and have an invitation from a publisher to write two more books. I would like to do some teaching and would also like to work on energy policy in the private sector.

It's a fleeting mention, but it's indeed interesting, as Dorgan remains one of the key potential votes on cap-and-trade legislation. He has thus far not been very enthusiastic about voting for a bill. "I’m in favor of taking action to reduce CO2 emissions and to protect our environment. But I don’t support the 'cap-and-trade' plan now being debated in the Congress," he wrote in an editorial in The Bismarck Tribune last summer.

His biggest interest when it comes to cap-and-trade: protecting coal. He has been among the staunchest advocates for coal in the Senate. "We need a future in which we continue to use our most abundant resource, and that’s coal," said Dorgan during debate of the energy bill last year.

Coal-fired power plants produce more than 90 percent of North Dakota's power, and the state has the largest lignite coal deposit in the world. Lignite mining is the state's fifth-largest industry, bringing in roughly $3 billion each year. Electric utilities have been Dorgan's fourth-largest contributor over his career, at $426,207, and energy and natural resources companies have also given him more than $829,000.

Now, he's also been an advocate of wind power, which is also abundant in his state. So there's always the chance that he will go on to consult on wind policy. But it seems most likely that the revolving door will drop him off in coal country. And if that is the case, it seems to indicate that Dorgan would be even less likely to vote for a cap-and-trade plan this year that would hurt the coal industry.

Lindsey Graham Censured for Climate Stance, Again

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jan. 6, 2010 8:44 AM PST

A second county Republican Party in South Carolina has voted to censure Sen. Lindsey Graham over his work on cap-and-trade legislation and his willingness work across party lines on issues like climate, bailing out the banks, and immigration.

The Lexington County Republican Party voted 13-7 in favor of a resolution censuring Graham on Monday, and called on the state party to rescind support for the senator, because his "positions do not reflect a complete belief in the South Carolina Republican party platform and do not serve the interests of South Carolinians." The resolution was sponsored by Talbert Black Jr., a county party member who had previously served as the interim state director for Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty campaign group, which gives a good sense of the stripe of conservatives running the Lexington County GOP.

Graham, the resolution states, has "repeatedly demonstrated contempt and belligerence towards those members of the Republican Party who support freedom, a Constitutional government, and the Republican Party platform."

His support for a cap-and-trade bill to address climate change and his willingness to work with John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), "reiterates his support for government intervention in the private sector in direct contradiction of the Republican principle of free markets, as stated by the Republican party platform," says the statement.

The Republican Party of Charleston County also voted to censure him in November for his stance on climate policy and his willingness to work with Democrats on key issues.

Graham responded to the most recent rebuke on Tuesday night, dissmissing the country chapter as "fringe elements" representing the "Ron Paul movement." He criticized what he called the "misplaced priorities" of the county GOP. "I do believe in finding common ground to solve hard problems," said Graham, "but there are some elements of my party and others that want complete agreement all the time."

"The 13 people who support this resolution are Ron Paul supporters," Graham said. "They didn't vote for me before and they're not going to vote for me next time, and I understand that."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Murkowski Seeks to Thwart EPA Emission Regulations (Again)

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Jan. 5, 2010 2:21 PM PST

The Environmental Protection Agency signaled last month that it intends to move forward on regulating greenhouse gas emissions, in the absence of a new law governing the planet-warming gases. But if Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski gets her way, the EPA won't get very far.

The ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee wants to tack an amendment onto unrelated legislation dealing with the statutory limit on the public debt that would curb the EPA's ability to regulate emissions. The move comes after the agency last month finalized their finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health, a necessary first step to moving forward on regulations.

Murkowski has been among the most active opponents of EPA regulation of greenhouse gases of late, despite stating repeatedly that she does want to see action taken to cut emissions. "I remain committed to reducing emissions through a policy that will protect our environment and strengthen our economy, but EPA's backdoor climate regulations achieve neither of those goals," Murkowski said last month. "EPA regulation must be taken off the table so that we can focus on more responsible approaches to dealing with global climate change."

Murkowski's measure is expected to go up for a formal vote on Jan. 20. Murkowski made a similar move last September, but was not successful. That particular measure was to have been added to an appropriations bill, and would have called for a year-long "time out" on EPA action regulating stationary sources of emissions, like power plants, manufacturers, and refineries. It would have blocked work on regulations at the agency by prohibiting the use of any agency funds for that purpose, though the EPA would have been allowed to move forward on regulations of emissions from automobiles and other mobile sources.

Murkowski's spokesperson said yesterday that there has not yet been a decision on whether to offer the same amendment, or something similar. At this point, all her office can say is that it will deal in some way with EPA regulation of emissions.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]