TV ad targets Sen. Barrasso's climate stand

By Bill McCarthy  |  Wyoming Tribune Eagle  |  View story in the original context
PUBLISHED: February 04, 2010

CHEYENNE -- A TV ad critical of Sen. John Barrasso for his efforts to stop climate-change legislation launches today.

The ad also criticizes Barrasso, R-Wyo., for saying global warming is not a national-security issue and for his acceptance of oil money to finance his campaigns.

VoteVets.org plans to run the ad 400 times on Cheyenne and Casper stations.

"The liberal, out-of-state special interest group paying for this ad does not represent Wyoming," Barrasso said Wednesday through a spokeswoman.

But Jon Stoltz, co-founder and chairman of Votevets.org, responded, "That's just childish."

Stoltz said the issue is whether the U.S. should continue sacrificing lives of the military and spending a fortune to maintain an unsustainable dependence on foreign oil that causes climate change.

Liberal and conservative labels are irrelevant, Stoltz said.

Climate change hampers agricultural production and diminishes water supplies, and that can lead to unstable governments and the dislocation of large populations, according to organizations such as Secure American Future.

Stoltz said that is a national security issue.

On Jan. 31, Barrasso said the Obama administration has "taken their eye off the ball" with the use of Central Intelligence Agency and Securities and Exchange Commission resources to monitor and analyze implications of climate change.

"We ought to be talking about jobs, the economy and national security," the senator said in an interview on TV's Fox News.

He tried, unsuccessfully, to legislatively stop the use of CIA resources on the climate-change issue.

Barrasso also has been against U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moves to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. He placed a Senate hold on an EPA assistant administrator nominee in protest.

The Associated Press on July 1, 2009, reported that Barrasso said "he will do everything he can to prevent a climate-change bill from passing the Senate."

Although Barrasso is not up for reelection until 2012, Stoltz said the senator is targeted in the ad because he has been an impediment to legislation aimed at alternative energy solutions.

"Sen. Barrasso should be listening to his constituents instead of calling us names," Stoltz said.

The ad features constituent Benjamin Cossel of Pine Bluffs, who served in Iraq in the Army in 2004 and 2005.

"For 30 years we've been warned about the danger of spending billions of dollars on oil," Cossel says in the ad. "The United States military calls it a major threat to our security.

"And on Christmas Day over Detroit, we were reminded again how oil money can fund terrorism against us. But even today, Sen. Barrasso won't break our addiction. And he won't break his own -- taking hundreds of thousands from companies that operate in countries that fund terror."

Barrasso said, "They don't understand that a Washington scheme that raises our taxes, doubles our energy bills and kills jobs is not popular in the Cowboy State.

"I will always put Wyoming's interests over Washington, which may not make outside special interests groups too happy."

Cossel, managing editor of the Pine Bluffs Post, said he did the ad "because I'm a strong believer in clean energy."

As an Iraq war veteran, Cossel said he has seen the consequences of dependence on foreign oil.

Votevets.org, citing the Center for Responsive Politics, says since taking office about three years ago, Barrasso has received at least $396,700 from the energy and natural resources industry.