Skip to main content

Collin Peterson votes against climate protection

Some years ago I was a columnist for the Becker County Record, which was published out of Detroit Lakes. One of the columns that I wrote was about Collin Peterson’s struggle to decide whether he was a Democrat or a Republican. He had been a Minnesota State Senator and, at the time, was a newly elected Democratic member of Congress. For some months he publicly struggled with the idea of rebranding himself as a Republican. In my column I mocked his political lack of principle and pointed out that he was already voting like a Republican.

Peterson ultimately decided to continue to market himself as a Democrat but over the years he has continued to vote very much like a Republican in many areas. This is especially true in the area of climate disruption and climate chaos. An analysis of his voting record on issues of climate disruption and climate protection has Representative Peterson voting in favor of climate disruption three-quarters of the time. A whopping 74% of the time Collin Peterson voted for climate disruption and against climate protection.

For example, Peterson voted for H.R. 1431, the “EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017”. This bill would have undermined the ability of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board to provide independent, objective, and credible scientific advice to the EPA. This legislation would also have allowed industry to significantly prolong the scientific review process which would delay key public health and environmental protections.
Peterson took another vote against providing good scientific information to the EPA when he voted for H.R. 1430, also known as the “HONEST Act”. This bill would endanger public health by making it extremely difficult for the EPA to use the best available science. The bill contains favorable exemptions for industry and would restrict the health studies that the EPA is able to use by requiring that data is shared with anyone willing to sign a vague confidentiality agreement. These provisions would severely limit the EPA’s ability to use data that includes studies with confidential health information, which are the basis for the best research on the health effects of pollution, according to 350.org. 

Peterson once again voted as a climate disruptor when he voted for H.R. 806. This bill would have delayed the EPA’s recently updated standards for ozone pollution and gutted a central pillar of the Clean Air Act. 

You can see more of Rep. Peterson’s anti-climate votes, along with the rare climate protector vote, at 

I will vote for Collin Peterson in November but I am deeply troubled by his support for climate disruption initiatives that have come from the Trump White House. Peterson needs to be held accountable for his climate disruption votes. I will attempt to do that and I hope that you will too.

Tim
Central Minnesota Political

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let us all walk in the foot steps of John Lewis

By John King In Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis, standing in the lead of a long line of marchers, looked down from the crest of The Edmund Pettus Bridge at the line of police armed with clubs, whips and truncheons and said, “I am going to die here.” Lewis intended to lead the marchers from Selma to the capital Montgomery, to demand access to voting for Black people in Alabama. Sheriff Jim Clark lowered his gas mask and led the deputies, some on horseback and some on foot, into the line of marchers. Under swinging clubs and hooves trampling, Lewis was the first to go down. Women and children were not spared. Choking and blinded by tear gas, they were struck by clubs and truncheons wrapped with barbed wire. Lewis, with a fractured skull and a severe concussion, almost did die. The nearby Good Samaritan Hospital did not have enough beds to care for the injured marchers. A nation watched in horror as news footage of that bloody day appeared on T...
2 comments
Read more

Are we farmers, producers, or growers?

I was glancing at an analysis of a livestock market report recently. The author wrote that livestock markets were improving because demand for product was increasing. Now we’ve all been weaned on the milk of capitalist eonomics so in less than a heart beat I knew that increased demand for beef product units by consumers translated into better prices for beef producers. I was reading a piece of proposed legislation this morning that referred to the people who grow food as producers. Producers presumably grow products or product units, also known as food. There is a trade magazine called the Vegetable Grower. Please note; it is not called the Vegetable Farmer or the Vegetable Gardener. Recently a restaurant in Singapore had a couple of items on its menu with food names and food appearance but the material on the plate was a protein created in a laboratory. If these lab proteins catch on their production will be scaled up and industrialized and mass produced. So many hundreds of thousa...
2 comments
Read more

Who do they represent?

Alexandria area State Representative Mary Franson has been in the news this week regarding her refusal to meet with a group of well mannered Alexandria high schoolers. My brother John sent the letter below to the Long Prairie Leader. It makes you wonder how many other politicians believe they represent only part of their constituency. -- ed. Dear Editor, It's a good idea to keep an eye on the legislators in order to see what kind of mischief they are up to.  Even if they are not from your district. You may remember Mary Franson; she was our representative until a few years back when things were redistricted and she was sent across the county line to Douglas County to represent the folks over there. So I have more or less kept my eye on Mary. She caught my attention this week with a Twitter exchange she had with the Student Democratic Society at Alexandria High School.  The students wanted to meet with her at her office out of a sense of civic responsibility...
4 comments
Read more