Republicans surrender another issue: the environment

Republicans had been leaders on conservation and the environment for more than 100 years, since Teddy Roosevelt was president.

Now, as with women’s issues, including abortion; gay issues, including same-sex marriage; integration, including amnesty and citizenship; police violence against blacks, amid the Iraq ISIS fighting they are seen as disinterested or ready to put U.S. boots on the ground again.

Republicans, who generally oppose trying to control climate change, instantly opposed a deal President Barack Obama made with China to control greenhouse emissions.

Such an agreement would have a much bigger impact on Beijing than the United States because our pollution has already been dramatically reduced.

The New York Times this weekend reported that Republican attorneys general are working with industry to stop the EPA from protecting the environment.

It was already known that Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, about to become Senate majority leader, wants coal workers to keep their jobs, whether they are unlikely to be sustainable and the rest of the nation pays in subsidies and pollution.

The Times found evidence that corporations had written letters for Republican attorneys general contesting the EPA’s action. Not only is it dishonest, it is plagiarism to claim the work of another writer in any form.

The Times reported on what its investigation found in a story titled “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance with Attorneys General.”

It cited a letter written by Devon Energy and sent to the EPA by Oklahoma Atty. Gen. Scott Pruitt as if he had written it himself.

“The email exchange from October 2011, obtained through an open-records request, offers a hint of the unprecedented, secretive alliance that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general have formed with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

“Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year.”

New York Times