2018 Election

5/17

there is a 2018 tag, but not for election so this will be for year as well

see maine timeline below

see dingdong

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/something-really-rotten-heres-the-evidence-of-extensive-voter-suppression-in-georgias-notorious-2018-election/

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/how-democratic-women-drove-the-2018-blue-wave/

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$500K rep party comm 2018?!

https://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.php?cycle=2018&cmte=rpc

---

ryan for Congress	$7,847,201
Kevin McCarthy for Congress	$2,794,995
McHenry for Congress	$1,972,335
Renaissance Technologies	$1,955,000
Station Casinos	$1,901,992
Scalise for Congress	$1,870,000
Koch Industries	$1,827,013
Charles Schwab Corp	$1,763,078
Brady for Congress	$1,623,118
Stewart & Stevenson	$1,582,375
Berexco Inc	$1,572,280
Show Me Institute	$1,520,024
Northwest Excavating	$1,456,500
Uline Inc	$1,422,126
Energy Transfer Equity	$1,353,839
Stephens Group	$1,309,440
Bluff Point Assoc	$1,293,000
Stivers for Congress	$1,273,200
Amway/Alticor Inc	$1,217,728
Eli Global	$1,208,800

----

Raised:	$993,963,461
Spent:	$881,329,189
Cash On Hand:	$58,907,844

===

10 bad env

The 2018 election is likely to bring a lot of new faces to Washington, and some anti-environment House incumbents will likely be out of a job. Here are several we certainly wouldn’t miss if they are defeated. These races, some rated as pure toss-ups, all feature lawmakers whose score on the League of Conservation Voters Scorecard ranges from 0% to 10%, indicating they almost always vote against the environment.

Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Calif.)

Cook Political Report: Toss-up | :{LCV: 4%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

This diversifying district broke for Clinton in 2016 and is now poised to oust a congresswoman who only recently came to grips with the demands of climate change and who is an eager proponent of offshore drilling. It took Walters until August of this year to connect California’s unprecedented wildfires to global warming, and last year, she was the co-sponsor of legislation would have gutted the Clean Air Act. Her challenger is Katie Porter, a consumer protection attorney and professor at UC Irvine.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.)

Cook Political Report: Toss-up | :{LCV: 10%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Rohrabacher, ironically a senior member of the House Committee on Science and Technology, would sooner connect global warming to “dinosaur flatulence” than man-made carbon emissions. He’s also said that global warming is a “total fraud”, and he’s denied that sea levels are rising even though they’ve risen seven inches in the past century and are set to rise faster in this one. This usually conservative district opted for Clinton in 2016, and a highly favorable political environment for Democrats might finally be Rohrabacher’s undoing after nearly 30 years in Congress. His challenger is Harley Rouda, a lawyer and real estate businessman.

Jeff Denham (R-Calif.)

Cook Political Report: Toss-up | :{LCV: 6%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Denham became a U.S. Representative in 2010 after serving in the California State Senate, where he defended adding climate change skepticism to California’s public education curriculum. Denham’s incumbency advantage is likely to help him in this political environment, and sparse independent public polling here makes it difficult to know if he can survive a possible Democratic wave. Denham’s challenger is Josh Harder, a fifth-generation Central Valley resident and venture capitalist.

Steve Knight (R-Calif.)

Cook Political Report: Toss-up | :{LCV: 3%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Knight became a US Representative in 2015, but his only pro-environment votes since taking office came last year, after his district voted forClinton by seven points. This year, Knight supported opening new offshore drilling leases in California and, in 2015, he voted to repeal the Clean Power Plan. This Romney-Clinton district may well flip to Democrat Katie Hill, the executive director of the largest homeless services non-profit in California.

OPEN: Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)

Cook Political Report: Lean D | LCV: 4% GONE

After his district voted for Clinton by seven points in 2016 and he himself won re-election by fewer than 1,000 votes, Issa is taking his cue to leave. His resignation announcement early this year will bring an end to a career punctuated by dubious positions on climate change. After promising to investigate climate scientists over unfounded allegations of data manipulation, he falsely claimed that there is no consensus on climate change. Running to replace him are Diane Harkey, a former banking executive who supports offshore drilling, and Mike Levin, an environmental lawyer and clean energy advocate.

Peter Roskam (R-Ill.)

Cook Political Report: Lean D | :{LCV: 7%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Roskam once called global warming “junk science” in a debate with environmental champion and now-Sen. Tammy Duckworth. He also voted for a symbolic resolution that claimed a carbon tax would be “detrimental” to the United States earlier this year. Roskam faces energy scientist Sean Casten in a district that went for Clinton by seven points and in a state where the incumbent Republican governor is severely trailing in his re-election bid.

Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.)

Cook Political Report: Lean Dem | :{LCV: 3%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Yoder rose to Congress on the Tea Party wave of 2010, and he’s rarely cast a pro-environment since. In 2015, when asked about climate change at a town hall, he downplayed America’s ability to affect global temperatures and last year he applauded President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Fortunately, it looks like Kansas’s 3rd District is ready for environmental leadership. The district voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 after going for Mitt Romney by 10 points in 2012, and recent public polling leans toward his challenger, Sharice Davids, a lawyer and former White House fellow.

Andy Barr (R-Ky.) SURVIVED

Cook Political Report: Toss-up | :{LCV: 2%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Barr, who launched his political career in 2010 by fiercely opposing cap and trade policies, is now trying to walk the nonexistent line between acknowledging climate change and also fiercely advocating for coal energy. He has previously said that, “We should not want the most carbon-free energy, but the best energy.” He was also a co-sponsor of a resolution that called for the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. While Kentucky’s 6th voted overwhelmingly for President Trump and Mitt Romney, Barr faces a strong challenger in Amy McGrath, who burst onto the scene after she released and triumphed over Lexington Mayor Jim Gray in the Kentucky Democratic primary.

Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minn.)

Cook Political Report: Lean Dem | :{LCV: 0%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Lewis is a freshman congressman who has voted against the environment at every possible opportunity since he squeaked out a two-point victory in 2016. And in a town hall this April, Lewis took the rather Trumpian tack toward global warming, saying, “The earth’s temperature changes. Has it warmed? You bet. I’m just not convinced it’s due to carbon emissions.” But scientists are convinced, and so are the vast majority of Americans. On November 6th Lewis faces Angie Craig, a former health care manufacturing executive, who is currently leading in the polls.

Dave Brat (R-Va.) GONE

Cook Political Report: Toss-Up | :{LCV: 1%:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Brat crushed then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the 2014 Virginia Republican primary with almost nothing but fiery Tea Party rhetoric. Now, as a congressman, he has defended Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and erroneously claimed that “the climate changes all the time.” And in the only televised debate between Brat and his challenger, Abigail Spanberger, he again criticized the Paris Climate Agreement, falsely claiming that cleaner energy would raise consumer costs (the opposite is true) and falsely claiming that America would pay for China’s supposed lack of cooperation in the agreement (which is untrue for quite a few of reasons). Spanberger, a former CIA operations officer, responded to Brat’s baseless positions in her closing remarks with a forceful advocacy for environmental investment.

Voting out these anti-environmental members of Congress will serve as a critical first step toward rejecting their pro-polluter agenda. But it’s going to take everything we’ve got. Pledge to vote on Tuesday, November 6th, and volunteer to text out the vote from the comfort of your home.

Kevin S. Curtis is the executive director of the NRDC Action Fund.

2018 midterms

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/01/dark-money

no lnx many graph

Dark money’ groups funneled millions to powerful super PACs during 2018 midterms

By Karl Evers-Hillstrom

January 3, 2019

Even in the most expensive midterm election cycle ever, outside spending reported by “dark money” 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) nonprofits was surprisingly sparse, falling to $126 million from $161 million in 2014.

Don’t let that fool you. Rather than spend it themselves, dark money groups instead chose to funnel their funds through super PACs,with which they are often closely linked or directly connected.

Groups that do not disclose their donors and shell corporations gave more than $176 million to super PACs and outside spending hybrid PACs during the 2018 election cycle, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The surge in dark money giving came as super PACs spent nearly $818 million in the 2018 elections, a monumental increase from the $345 million they spent in the previous midterm cycle.

The top outside spending super PAC this cycle, Congressional Leadership Fund,also got the most dark money, receiving more than $26 million from the closely-linked American Action Network. The same officials run the two conservative groups and share a Washington, D.C. office.

Similarly, conservative dark money groupOne Nationgave more than $18.5 million to the neighboring Senate Leadership Fund, with which it shares an office and president.

The Democrat-aligned Senate Majority PAC, the second-largest outside spending group this cycle, got $6.8 million from dark money sources, including $4.5 million from the Greater New York Hospital Association, a trade association that does not disclose its donors. The super PAC also took in $1.4 million from the closely-tied Majority Forward, by far the top dark money spender this cycle.

Looking beyond the biggest political players, several super PACs directly connected with political nonprofits got significant funds, if not all their money, from the corresponding non-disclosing nonprofit.

One prominent example of this isDemocrat-supporting Environment America Action Fund, which got pretty much all of its money from dark money sources and more than $14 million from its own subsidiaries.

Even super PACs supporting single candidates get in on the dark money action. Hometown Freedom Action Network, a single-candidate super PAC supporting Tommy Pope — a Republican who lost the primary in South Carolina’s 5th District race — got nearly all of its $3.4 million fromCitizens for A Working America,a non-disclosing group.

Change Now PAC emerged as a large spender seemingly out of nowhere, shelling out $7.9 million to aid House Democrats despite popping up a few months before the election. The group took nearly $3 million from dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund and another $1.8 million from partially-disclosing groups, which include fellow super PACs that accept dark money.

In total, 33 super PACs and hybrid PACs received more than $1 million from dark money sources.

These groups are allowed to spend unlimited sums on advertisements and other literature supporting or opposing candidates. Super PACs must disclose their donors, but large givers can shield their identities by contributing to dark money nonprofits that funnel the funds to super PACs. Those super PACs then identify the respective dark money group as the donor.

“It is clear that any long-term solution to the dark money problem will require addressing transfers between groups,” said Tyler Cole, legislative director at Issue One, a cross-partisan Washington, D.C. group that aims to reduce the influence of big money on politics. “Real disclosure requires identifying what individual donors are behind the groups that spend millions to influence American elections.”

It’s possible dark money’s influence is greater than CRP’s numbers convey, as super PACs also accept funds from fellow partially-disclosing groups — groups that take money from dark money sources. Contributions from these groups could be dark money, but it’s nearly impossible to tell.

Additionally, dark money groups have been known to spend funds on issue advocacy advertisements that they do not register with the FEC.

Though not considered dark money in CRP data, “Pop-up PACs” are a new kind of strategy to dodge donor disclosure. These super PACs waited until Oct. 18 to spend for or against candidates, allowing them to hide their donors until after election day.

“The American public is fed up with our broken political system and their anger is starting to boil over,” Cole said. “Political consultants and dark money groups know this, but they are still not willing to engage in meaningful disclosure.”

red tide post election dirty tricks

https://www.alternet.org/heres-rundown-gops-anti-democratic-red-tide-and-what-you-can-do-stop-it

In the wake of the 2018 “blue wave,” we’re now seeing a “red tide” of anti-democratic power-grabs -- strategies, tactics and rationales designed to deny the will of the voters — not just in Wisconsin, but in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Maine and elsewhere.

In mid-November, Salon’s Igor Derysh reported on GOP efforts to rush unpopular laws through three state legislatures: Rolling back minimum wage raises and paid sick leave protections in Michigan, a new new voter-ID requirement in North Carolina, and restricting Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers’ executive powers in Wisconsin. But the picture has darkened considerably since then, both within these three states and beyond.

The power grab politics we’re seeing fall into three main categories:

InWisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina lame -uck legislaturesare engaged in overriding will of the voters, with the back-up protection of gerrymandering protecting them from reversal and from voters' wrath. (Something similar may be happening with county board of supervisors in Maricopa County, Arizona, with noise being made about stripping the Democratic election supervisor of powers as well.)
In Maine, GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin has brought a lawsuit against the ranked-choice vote election of his Democratic opponent, Jared Golden. As I’ve described before (here and here), RCV makes democracy more robust, which drives GOP crazy, so here they’re trying to attack it arguing the opposite. The power-grab mentality simply cannot understand the power-sharing benefits involved in ranked-choice voting, and can only see it as some kind of trick.
In North Carolina’s 9th congressional district race, there’s overwhelming evidence of actual electoral fraud(involving hundreds, if not thousands of ballots), driven by the power-grabbing mentality. This flies in the face of the myth of voter fraud, which has never been supported by more than a few scattered examples among many millions of votes. Both the myth and the reality reflect the underlying worldview of right-wing Republican activists, and given how fact-free the “voter fraud” myth is, we should expect this example of GOP electoral fraud to be used to further suppress Democratic voters.

The first category is so overflowing with examples that it’s impossible to do justice to the other two in a single story, but they need to be recognized as parts of the same overall dynamic, a zero-sum quest for power, eerily estranged from any sense of shared purpose that power might serve.

As noted at Vox, the New York Times and elsewhere, after Democrat Roy Cooper won the North Carolina governor’s race in 2016, North Carolina Republicans wrote the playbook for lame-duck power grabs that Wisconsin and Michigan Republicans are using today — playbooks focused on stripping power from the executive branch and assuming it for themselves. But as the list above shows, Wisconsin and Michigan aren’t alone, nor are GOP power grabs limited to legislatures grabbing power from the executive branch, nor is the 2016 North Carolina playbook the sole origin point for the power grabs going on.

As Vox notes, the basis of most such power grabs is the GOP’s unprecedented post-2010 gerrymandering. Former Salon executive editor David Daley wrote the book on this, “Ratf**ked.” (Salon interview here.) But there’s also a history of legislative power grabs attacking state courts since the early 2000s, as I wrote about earlier this year.

In addition, 2003 stands out as especially significant because of power grabs in two of the most populous, politically consequential states: The unprecedented recall of California Gov. Gray Davis (the first governor ever recalled for purely political reasons, with no allegations of malfeasance) and the equally unprecedented mid-decade redistricting of Texas’s congressional districts. Both were legally permissible, but violated long-standing norms,a category of political action described by Harvard Law professor Mark Tushnet as “constitutional hardball.” While 2003 was hardly the beginning of constitutional hardball, it signaled the start of a new phase, focused on state-level machinations, which is now more intensified than ever.

Yet more recently, a counter-movement from below has suddenly emerged. Redistricting reform— taking the process out of politician’s hands — proved enormously popular this year, the Brennan Center noted. Ballot measures passed in five states — Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Utah — putting the breaks on future extreme partisan gerrymandering. While uniformly more popular with Democrats, the measures received more than 60 percent support from Republicans in four of the five states. The Brennen Center analyzed the county-level approval rate and compared support to that in statewide partisan elections, finding that “these proposals did strikingly well among Republicans, far outperforming candidates of either party in nearly every instance.”

Michigan was a particularly interesting example, because GOP officials openly opposed the citizen initiative, as “a Democratic power grab,” the Center noted. “Despite that, the measure won more than 61 percent of the statewide vote and a majority of the vote in 66 of the state’s 84 counties,” including all of the most populous GOP-leaning counties, as can be seen from this chart:

What this tells us, in no uncertain terms, is that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, if only we can manage to find our way. But finding our way includes understanding where we are. So let’s take a closer look at the forms that power-grab politics has taken this post-election season.

Wisconsin

In Wisconsin, Democrats Tony Evers and Josh Kaul ran for governor and attorney general, respectively, on a promise to defend the Affordable Care Act, and remove the state from a GOP lawsuit challenging the law. The GOP power grab would block them from doing that. It gives GOP lawmakers control of litigation involving the state, and allows them to replace the attorney general with state-funded private attorneys. It also entirely eliminates the position of solicitor general, the state’s in-court representative in high-profile cases. It’s as if Congress took over the Department of Justice, and farmed out work to private law firms—a jaw-dropping violation of the separation of powers.

As Dan Kaufman, author of "The Fall of Wisconsin," told Governing magazine, “Tony Evers campaigned on certain things. He ran on the position of defending the Affordable Care Act. That was a central part of his campaign. Nobody ran on their side on stripping power away from the incoming governor, whoever it may be.”

While there are many other aspects to the GOP power grab —“It's a dense, 141-page bill, with a lot of changes,” Kaufman said — this stands out as a defining feature, if only because so much else was simply smuggled through. “Like most of what has happened in the last eight years, there was no public input, with one limited hearing,” Kaufman explained. “The process itself is maybe the biggest outrage for people.”

The Wisconsin story actually starts two years before North Carolina Republicans wrote their playbook, and its essence is straight-up deception of the voters, as University of Wisconsin professor Michael Wagner explained in a Salon interview last week:

Gov. Walker took office and immediately pursued legislation curtailing the power of labor unions. He had not campaigned on it. It was so controversial it filled the capitol with protestors for weeks. He leaves office with the capitol filled with protesters once again as he is asked to sign legislation that he and his fellow Republicans did not campaign on during the election season.

More than that, Wisconsin had long observed the norm that once an election was held those in power would stop pursuing any contested policies, as Wagner explained:

When Gov. Walker replaced outgoing Gov. Doyle, Doyle halted his signature high-speed rail project at Walker’s request, as Walker had been against it. What is happening now in Wisconsin is a subversion of democracy – Wisconsin Republican lawmakers are changing the job descriptions of the governor and attorney general between Election Day and Inauguration Day simply because their side lost. This is a textbook example of how democracies die. That is, when norms about the peaceful transfer of power are violated, we are in trouble.

Georgetown public policy professor Donald Moynihan, late of the University of Wisconsin, agreed. “It’s impossible in Wisconsin history to find anything even remotely similar,” he told Salon for this story.

The new legislation also restricts the governor’s power to negotiate state-federal relations, another key feature of executive power. “That might sound like inside baseball, but it’s a huge deal, since Medicaid and Medicare drive state budgets,” Moynihan said, going on to explain:

Evers’ predecessors used this power to put their impri

... quite long]

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/wisconsin-power-grab-protestors-state-capitol

failed in n carolina? also done now in MI

Stinging from their defeat at the polls in November, Republicans are now rushing a set of bills through a special session of the Wisconsin State Assembly nakedly designed to curb the power of Democratic Governor-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul, and handicap Democrats' competitiveness in upcoming elections. The bills are scheduled for a vote on Tuesday, with the plan of getting them on outgoing GOP Gov. Scott Walker's desk so he can sign them before losing his job in a few weeks.

But Republicans didn't plan on the furious wave of protests that would descend on the state capitol in Madison on Monday afternoon.

Demonstrators crowded outside as the bills were debated, trying to shout down Republicans' power grab: [pix tweets]

The protests were spurred along by MoveOn political director Ben Wikler, who has been covering the GOP's power play closely since last Friday when the bills were first introduced, and who urged his followers in other states to call senators in key districts:

[twits]

Wisconsin's GOP Senate Majority Leader, Scott Fitzgerald, seemed ill-prepared for the wave of condemnation directed at his caucus, saying that he was "a little surprised" by the reaction and calling the demonstrations "over the top." But he didn't even try to hide the motivation behind the bills, saying that the bills were necessary because "we don't trust Tony Evers right now."

At the same time, in a seeming acknowledgement that the protests are working, Fitzgerald said that he doesn't yet have the votes for all of the legislation.

Among the things the bills would do are restrict Evers' power to allocate public funds, shift the authority to let Kaul terminate a state lawsuit from Evers to the legislature (thus vetoing his campaign promise to end Wisconsin's involvement in the Affordable Care Act lawsuit), give the legislature authority to defend cases challenging the constitutionality of their own bills (so they can fight to preserve their own gerrymandering scheme), cut back early voting, and move the date of the Democratic presidential primary so that it is held on a different day from the state Supreme Court election (which the GOP hopes will depress turnout and let them keep their judicial majority).

...

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/12/each-of-the-five-most-expensive-house-races-ever-took-place-in-2018

5 record house races

...

PACs, particularly in contested toss-up races.

Excluding special elections, each of the five highest-spending House races ever — including money spent by candidates and outside groups — were held this cycle. Four of those five races were rated as toss-ups. [graf]

With nearly $37 million spent in total, the battle for the open seat in **California’s 39th District** takes the cake for the most expensive non-special election House race ever.

Winning Democrat Gil Cisneros, a Navy war veteran and Mega Millions lottery winner, poured more than $9 million of his own money into his campaign and raised $2.8 million.

The Paul Ryan-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) made Cisneros its top target during the general election, buying $6.2 million in ads — including several roughly-$1 million ad buys in October — attacking the Democrat.

Deciding that the best defense is a good offense, the Nancy Pelosi-aligned House Majority PAC (HMP) spent $2.8 million in negative media buys against Republican Young Kim, most of which came during the same time as CLF’s spending spree. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) dropped another $2 million into the race to help Cisneros.

In **California’s 48th District**, losing incumbent Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was on the wrong side of $11 million in outside spending, the most in opposition spending of any non-special election House candidate in U.S. history. The 15-term congressman endured attacks from almost every major liberal super PAC in existence, these ads focused particularly on his denial of climate change and his frequent trips to Russia.

Among the environmental-focused super PACs,**Independence USA** spent a race-high $4.5 million in attack ads against Rohrabacher.

Worried about the prospects of a two-Republican race in California’s top-two system and eager to face off with the unpopular Rohrabacher, mainstream liberal groups had it out for Republican primary challenger Scott Baugh. The DCCC spent $1.7 million opposing Baugh and HMP added $833,856.

Victorious Democrat Harley Rouda got just 17.3 percent of the vote during the primary — 125 votes more than fellow Democrat Hans Keirstead — but received 52.9 percent in the general election. He raised nearly $8 million to Rohrabacher’s $2.7 million.

In another toss-up race won by the Democrat, **Washington’s 8th District** race drew nearly $19 million in outside spending. Seven outside groups spent $1 million or more.

Democratic Rep-elect Kim Schrier was aided by $12 million in outside spending and outraised Republican Dino Rossi $8.1 million to $4.8 million.

**New York’s 19th District**race was yet another example of a cash-flush Democrat beating an incumbent Republican in a toss-up battle. Rep.-elect Antonio Delgado raised more than $9 million to Republican Rep. John Faso’s $3.9 million.

Like in each race mentioned above, CLF spent roughly $4 million or more in unsuccessful attack ads against the Democrat.

**Pennsylvania’s 1st District** was one of the few toss-up House races where CLF and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent heavily and saw their Republican candidate win. The NRCC had by far the worst win rate of any major outside group this cycle.

Incumbent Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick barely fended off a challenge from Philadelphia multi-millionaire Scott Wallace, who self-financed his campaignto the tune of $12.8 million.

Just missing the cut, this cycle’s California 25th District race comes in sixth all-time for total spending at $30.7 million. Democratic winner Katie Hill raised more than $8 million and was aided by more than $12 million in outside spending.

The previous record holder was Florida’s 18th District race in 2012, where $29.6 million was spent in total. Incumbent Republican Rep. Allen West lost the race by a razor-thin margin, despite raising a stunning $19.4 million.

Baldwin Ads Used Vukmir’s ALEC Ties to Define Her

Baldwin was the first candidate in a high-profile race that used the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to effectively frame her opponent as doing the bidding of corporate special interests. The ads capitalize on Leah Vukmir’s long association with the corporate bill mill, where she moved from treasurer to vice president to national chair by 2016. In 2017, she was given an “Iron Lady” award from ALEC, likening the ambitious Vukmir to GOP icon Margaret Thatcher....

wow

Utah Sen.-elect Mitt Romney signaled he may focus on climate change when he's sworn in in January.

In a brief interview with E&E News yesterday, the former Republican presidential nominee said he sees climate change as a "critical area."

Asked if it was an issue he planned to be active on in the Senate, Romney said that he intends "to be active in everything I can be active in" after he takes his post.

Romney, a 2012 Republican presidential nominee who easily won his race to replace outgoing Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), has swung on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions for years.

As governor of the blue state of Massachusetts, he pushed to close old coal-fired power plants and helped create the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — essentially a cap-and-trade plan — in the Northeast (Climatewire, Nov. 8).

He has also long advocated increased oil and gas production in an effort to increase U.S. energy independence, including drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

As a presidential candidate in a competitive GOP primary, Romney took a modified tone, shifting some of the dialogue to questions of economics as opposed to science.

"My view is that we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us," he said during a 2011 fundraiser, according to ABC News.

But for the past six years, the Republican has been fairly consistent in emphasizing climate change as an urgent problem that humans contribute to and demands action.

Last year, Romney told college students in St. Louis that he was "concerned about the anti-scientific attitude" expressed by some of his Republican colleagues and that he was convinced humanity has played a part in global warming (Climatewire, Oct. 3).

"I happen to believe that there is climate change, and I think humans contribute to it in a substantial way, and therefore I look with openness to all the ideas that might be able to address that," he said at the time.

icn no lnx

5 Election Winners to Watch on Climate as Environment Crusaders Head to Congress

They’ve taken on polluters and built climate solutions. Now they’re bringing activism to Congress in one of the most diverse freshman classes in U.S. House history.

Marianne Lavelle

BY MARIANNE LAVELLE

NOV 12, 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned for other climate supporters after defeating a long-time congressman in the Democratic primary. Dan Videtich for the Washington Post via Getty Images

Capitol Hill is about to get an injection of environmental and climate activism.

The freshman class of the 116th Congress—in addition to including an historic number of women and being one of the most ethnically and racially diverse—will have a striking number of members who have been environmental crusaders. With track records of taking on powerful fossil fuel interests or building clean energy businesses, many of them are talking about a "Green New Deal"—a massive federal government effort for clean energy and jobs.

Although such federal legislation seems unlikely in the short term, given the Republicans' hold on the Senate and President Donald Trump's veto pen, this Congress will have members who have taken on big environmental and social justice challenges and prevailed.

"We are thrilled that so many new members of the 116th Congress have been longtime leaders in accelerating our transition to clean energy and combating climate change," said Tiernen Sittenfeld, senior vice president for government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, which spent a record $80 million campaigning for green candidates this year. Sittenfeld said their expertise and track records in fighting powerful interests in their states are "a welcome addition to Congress at a critically important time."

RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote, said she is "incredibly optimistic" about the next Congress. "The incoming freshman class is shifting the Democrats to the left—if you consider 100 percent clean energy 'left,'" she said.

Here are just a few of this election's winners who have pledged to push back against President Donald Trump's rollbacks of environmental protection, while pushing forward a climate action agenda in the new Congress.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx and Queens, New York

Visiting the Dakota Access pipeline protests in 2016 "tipped the scale for me," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a Reddit forum. Trump had not yet won the presidency, but Ocasio-Cortez's candidate, Bernie Sanders, had lost his quest for the Democratic nomination. She and other Sanders campaigners, still eager to connect with likeminded protagonists, traveled to places like Flint, Michigan, where residents were fighting for clean water, and North Dakota, where the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was waging a struggle against a pipeline near their water supply.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an environmental justice activist, made climate action a centerpiece of her campaign. Credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

Ocasio-Cortez, a former Bronx bartender, entered politics at the next opportunity—pulling off an upset win in the Democratic primary last spring to unseat long-serving Rep. Joe Crowley. She made climate action a centerpiece of her campaign, noting how coastal areas of her district like Throgs Neck and City Island are fighting erosion and rising sea levels. She also links environmental action with economic transformation and a mobilization toward 100 percent renewable energy nationwide by 2035.

"Radically addressing climate change is a potential path towards a more equitable economy with increased employment and widespread financial security for all," her platform said.

Sean Casten, suburbs of Chicago, Illinois

Sean Casten and his father built an energy efficiency business around what he calls "boring, unsexy" technology: They helped manufacturers cut their greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills by capturing industrial waste heat and recycling it on site to generate electricity twice as efficiently as the power grid. Casten is determined to pursue policies that treat acting on climate change as a win-win opportunity that will create new businesses and jobs—as it did in his own life.

Sean Casten, an engineer elected to the U.S. House from Chicago's suburbs. Credit: Casten Campaign

Sean Casten, an industrial energy efficiency engineer, says he'll pursue policies that take action on climate change and create new business opportunities and jobs. Credit: Casten campaign

Casten defeated Republican Rep. Peter Roskam, who had a pro-environment voting record of a mere 3 percent last year, according to the League of Conservation Voters scorecard.

"I believe everybody in this country deeply cares about climate change," Casten said. "If you say, 'Are you concerned with waves of refugees? Are you concerned with tropical diseases becoming subtropical? Are you concerned about all these billion-dollar insurance events? Are you concerned about energy costs?' If you frame the issues where people are, they will connect the dots."

Rashida Tlaib, Detroit, Michigan

Michigan officials insisted there was no danger from the black piles on the Detroit riverfront—petroleum coke, a waste product of the billionaire Koch brothers' oil refining operations. In 2013, wind was blowing the black dust into the air, into the Detroit River, and into the homes and gardens of constituents of Rashida Tlaib, then a representative in Michigan's legislature.

Frustrated with the state's inaction, Tlaib (pronounced tah-LEEB) grabbed kitchen gloves and plastic baggies, and with a small team of citizens marched past the "No Trespassing" signs to collect samples. They found it contained potentially harmful vanadium and selenium, and ultimately, the piles were removed.

Rashida Tlaib. Credit: Tlaib Campaign

As a state representative, Rashida Tlaib helped force a cleanup on the Detroit waterfront of petroleum coke, a waste product of the billionaire Koch brothers' oil refining operations. Credit: Tlaib campaign

Tlaib plans to take the environmental justice fight to Congress, as well as working for curbs on corporate campaign contributions. "Taking on corporate greed is an environmental concern," she told ThinkProgress. Filling the seat of retired Rep. John Conyers, Tlaib, along with Minnesota's Ilhan Omar will be the first two Muslim women in Congress.

Mike Levin, suburbs of San Diego, California

Mike Levin launched his campaign for Congress at a town hall last year, when he handed "Climate Change for Beginners" to his congressman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). Issa, who had called climate science a "convenient lie" and attacked clean jobs programs, eventually retired rather than face reelection in a once-Republican district that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Mike Levin. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Mike Levin, an environmental lawyer, co-founded a clean energy nonprofit and lobbied for state rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions and deploy more electric vehicles. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Levin has said that growing up on California's coast inspired him to become an environmental lawyer and activist. He co-founded Sustain OC, a clean energy nonprofit in Orange County and helped lobby for the state policies now in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deploy more electric vehicles. He also worked to establish renewable energy projects, like a fuel cell power plant at the University of California San Diego that is running off of the waste methane produced at the Point Loma wastewater facility.

"If we think about the integration of solar and wind and storage and other renewables, waste to energy, where eventually they will become 100 percent of our energy mix, it will be a massive economic opportunity," Levin told local news station KPBS. "Now what we need is a supportive federal government."

Veronica Escobar, El Paso, Texas

The smokestacks of the American Smelting and Refining Company, known as Asarco, loomed over El Paso's landscape and history when Veronica Escobar began her tenure as county commissioner in 2007. The shuttered site was where some of the first studies established the toll of lead pollution on children. When Asarco sought to reopen the smelter, Escobar opposed it, testifying in the state capitol and joining in protests. The opposition was successful and Asarco was eventually ordered to clean up the site.

Veronica Escobar. Credit: Escobar Campaign

As a county commissioner, Veronica Escobar fought polluters and helped block a utility's attempt to charge more money to customers who have rooftop solar. Credit: Escobar campaign

Escobar, who later became the top county executive, sought a cleaner, healthier future for the community, started a public-private ecotourism commission to promote the local outdoor recreation industry, and created a foundation to build a riverside trail across the county. She intervened to block an effort by El Paso Electric to charge more money to customers that had rooftop solar.

"Our planet is being destroyed in front of our very eyes, on OUR watch," Escobar said on Twitter after the Trump administration unveiled its plan to roll back President Barack Obama's signature climate initiative, the Clean Power Plan. "We have an obligation to fight to protect our environment with every fiber of our being. These midterm elections are the most important of our lifetime. For us, for our planet, for our children."

She is replacing Beto O'Rourke, who decided not to seek reelection last year when he began his unsuccessful run against Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate. Escobar and Sylvia Garcia will be the first Latinas to represent Texas in Congress.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

POLITICS

ELECTION 2018 CLIMATE CHANGE

Money advantage decided most House races, proved insurmountable for California GOP	Money advantage decided most House races, proved insurmountable for California GOP	Money advantage decided most House races, proved insurmountable for California GOP	Money advantage decided most House races, proved insurmountable for California GOP	Money advantage decided most House races, proved insurmountable for California GOP

With a handful of House races yet to be called, the candidate backed by more money has won exactly 90 percent of them. That means the candidate with less financial backing — including their own campaign funds and outside spending support — has won in just 41 of 411 House races that have been decided. Though 90 percent is a high number, it’s the lowest win rate for better-funded House candidates since 2010. Of the 49 races called in California, just four winners had less money behind them than their opponent. For Texas and New York, the number shrinks to three and two, respectively.	With a handful of House races yet to be called, the candidate backed by more money has won exactly 90 percent of them. That means the candidate with less financial backing — including their own campaign funds and outside spending support — has won in just 41 of 411 House races that have been decided. Though 90 percent is a high number, it’s the lowest win rate for better-funded House candidates since 2010. Of the 49 races called in California, just four winners had less money behind them than their opponent. For Texas and New York, the number shrinks to three and two, respectively.	With a handful of House races yet to be called, the candidate backed by more money has won exactly 90 percent of them. That means the candidate with less financial backing — including their own campaign funds and outside spending support — has won in just 41 of 411 House races that have been decided. Though 90 percent is a high number, it’s the lowest win rate for better-funded House candidates since 2010. Of the 49 races called in California, just four winners had less money behind them than their opponent. For Texas and New York, the number shrinks to three and two, respectively.	With a handful of House races yet to be called, the candidate backed by more money has won exactly 90 percent of them. That means the candidate with less financial backing — including their own campaign funds and outside spending support — has won in just 41 of 411 House races that have been decided. Though 90 percent is a high number, it’s the lowest win rate for better-funded House candidates since 2010. Of the 49 races called in California, just four winners had less money behind them than their opponent. For Texas and New York, the number shrinks to three and two, respectively.	With a handful of House races yet to be called, the candidate backed by more money has won exactly 90 percent of them. That means the candidate with less financial backing — including their own campaign funds and outside spending support — has won in just 41 of 411 House races that have been decided. Though 90 percent is a high number, it’s the lowest win rate for better-funded House candidates since 2010. Of the 49 races called in California, just four winners had less money behind them than their opponent. For Texas and New York, the number shrinks to three and two, respectively.

Money advantage decided most House races, proved insurmountable for California GOP

With a handful of House races yet to be called, the candidate backed by more money has won exactly 90 percent of them. That means the candidate with less financial backing — including their own campaign funds and outside spending support — has won in just 41 of 411 House races that have been decided.

Though 90 percent is a high number, it’s the lowest win rate for better-funded House candidates since 2010. Of the 49 races called in California, just four winners had less money behind them than their opponent. For Texas and New York, the number shrinks to three and two, respectively.

...new super PAC, the Koch network lost many of its big bets in 2018, including those placed on Matt Rosendale in Montana and Leah Vukmir in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin also saw the unseating of a Koch-network favorite, Gov. Scott Walker. Americans for Prosperity Action, one of many Koch-network groups that spend big money to influence elections, aided two incumbents in Iowa races, both of whom lost, and failed to elect prospective Nevada governor Adam Laxalt. (Freedom Partners, another Koch network group, criticized Laxalt’s opponent in a Facebook ad for taking campaign contributions.)

AFP Action reportedly spent at least $75,000, and in some cases spent as much as $300,000, on each race it targeted. At a July summit for donors in Colorado Springs, Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries and the network’s patriarch, pledged to spend something like $400 million on the 2018 election cycle.

Also at the conference, Koch promised that the network would be “much stricter” with whom it backs going forward. He criticized President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies, indicated the network might be open to working with Democrats, and presented a series of network priorities that break somewhat from the current Republican playbook and past Koch-precedent. These included education, criminal justice reform and “uniting people who have been previously divided.”

Trump’s tweet about how the “globalist Koch brothers” had “bad ideas” and were “no longer relevant” came soon after.

Though the Koch network did manage to help beat Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, 2018 was a far cry from the 2010 Tea Party wave when the network was at the crest of its power and influence. The group has made overtures to Democrats and progressive causes in the past, but the aftermath of the 2018 election could mark the moment where the network changes its approach in a big way.

:{Koch surrogates have been alluding to a coming shift. Gabrielle Broad, the host of }:{ (a sort of internet chat-series produced by }:Americans for Prosperity:{), tweeted a link to a Bloomberg article entitled “Koch Network Looks to a More Bipartisan Tone Following Midterms.”}:

“We see an opportunity to engage the American people to address some of the toughest problems facing our country,” said Broad’s tweet. “Exciting work ahead!”

James Davis, a network spokesman, toldBloomberg “a majority of Americans are rightly frustrated with the seeming inability to come together to solve major societal problems.”

According to Davis’s LinkedIn, he is both executive vice president of Freedom Partners, a Koch network group, and president of **In Pursuit Of**, a communications and marketing agency with strong ties to the white house. In Pursuit Of has seen an editorial director and a deputy director of writing go to work in the Trump administration as “special assistant(s) to the president” according to ProPublica. Davis also has a recommendation on his LinkedIn from former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Though the Koch network has stopped short of financially backing Democratic candidates, the network drew the ire of the Republican National Committee thanks to its unwillingness to back Kevin Cramer when he ran against Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.). They also famously sat out the general election between President Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016. The network breaksfrom Republicans, especially those aligned with President Trump, in its assertion that any funding for a border wall should be bound to action protecting immigrants who benefit from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The network aligned itself with the American Civil Liberties Union and other liberal groups in support of the Florida ballot initiative that restored voting rights to Americans with felony convictions, (with some exceptions for those convicted of violent crimes) and it pushed for the First Step Act to become law.

Co-sponsored in the House by Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.), The First Step Act aims to reduce recidivism by introducing programs for inmates such as vocational training and improved drug rehabilitation. President Trump recently indicated he supports the act, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have supported the legislation for some time.

Under the First Step Act, the Bureau of Prisons would be compelled to create an “earned time credit” program, allowing inmates to shave days off their sentences by participating in jobs training and other programming. The act also mellows mandatory minimum sentencing requirements. The First Step Act would also expand the use of “algorithms that try to predict future behavior” according to the Marshall Project. Some worry reliance on algorithms could worsen existing racial or class disparities in the prison system.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) oppose the bill, saying that it is too narrow and does not deliver comprehensive reform.

The network also funds the Safe Streets and Second Chances program which is beta-testing a prisoner reentry model that would prioritize convicted people serving out more of their sentences at home. When the program was introduced in Texas, it was “headquartered” at Unlocking DOORS. Unlocking DOORS lists Geo Reentry Services, a Geo Group company, as a partner.

In part, the network appears to view mass incarceration as a matter of government waste. Accordingto the Koch Industries’ website, around three times as much is spent on incarceration than is spent on K-12 education.

The Kochs have not always embraced this more progressive approach to criminal justice. Back in 1994, the Kochs co-sponsored a conference for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) with the Corrections Corporation of America. The conference promoted the sort of “tough on crime” rhetoric that the First Step Act pushes back against. Both Charles and David Koch received an “Adam Smith Award” at the event. An ALEC task force was also instrumental in developing “three strikes you’re out” laws and mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

More recently, the Koch network has helped pay for political ads supporting “tough on crime” politicians. One ad, which calls out a Louisiana Democrat for supporting then-President Obama in his efforts to reduce sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, actually attacks policies for which Charles Koch has expressed support. That did not stop Koch Industries from donating to the candidate who sponsored the ad, David Vitter, who identifiedas a member of the Tea Party movement and was one of the only two Senators to vote against Hillary Clinton’s confirmation as secretary of state. A Koch network super PAC also backed Vitter’s campaign.

According to UnKoch My Campus, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a State Policy Network affiliate, was instrumental in establishing the “Right On Crime” philosophy which advocates increased reliance on private prison systems, privatized parole and increased electronic monitoring. The State Policy Network is a Koch-affiliated group. An accidentally released 2010 tax document from the Texas Public Policy Foundation showed they received funding from Koch Industries as well as Geo Prison Group, another GEO Group company, whose website touts the company as a “complete electronic monitoring solutions provider.”

With more big money backing Democrats anyway, it is hard to predict if the left will embrace the new Koch network. President Obama incited laughter:{ at an NAACP event when he applauded the Kochs for their positions on criminal justice reform, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren has } :{for funding climate change denial research on the Senate floor. Koch Industries is also one of the most prolific contributors of greenhouse gases in the United States, and they’ve given tens of millions to groups who deny climate change. It is hard to imagine them selling the increasingly }:climate-hawkish:{ democrats on many of their policies.}:

Still, the Koch network is nothing if not adaptable. Their dozens of interlocking nonprofits, PACs and think tanks continue to reorganize and adapt to the shifting political landscape, and in spite of the recent departure of David Koch from the family’s political and business operations (making the iconic “Koch brothers” moniker archaic), Charles Koch is confident.

“We’ve more progress in the last five years than I did in the previous 50,” Koch said at the Colorado Springs conference. “All we have to do to capture (these opportunities) is to do the very thing that made Frederick Douglass such an amazing, principled social change entrepreneur: stand by our principals at whatever the cost. Resist all temptations in short-term gain.”

Colorado

In Colorado, the state-wide measure known as Proposition 112 was presented as a common-sense proposal “changing existing distance requirements to require that any new oil and gas development be located at least 2,500 feet from any structure intended for human occupancy.” Current setback requirements for drilling and fracking are 500 feet from homes and 1,000 feet from schools.

In April 2017, an abandoned, uncapped gas line blew up a home in Firestone, Colorado, leaving two dead and sending two to the hospital. Just a few miles and less than a month later, an Anadarko oil well exploded, killing one and injuring three.

The oil and gas industry helped spend approximately $30 million to defeat Proposition 112, using the usual arguments that the measure would have a negative impact on jobs and the economy. Opponents and donors against the measure included the American Petroleum Institute, a state committee of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, and an ExxonMobil state committee.

While the final vote tallies aren’t in yet, the measure definitely was voted down, with current tallies showing over 56 percent of votersdeciding against it.

Oklahoma

Earthquakes caused by fracking wastewater injections were a major topic in the race for corporation commissioner in Oklahoma. The corporation commission oversees the oil and gas industry in the state.

One of the main issues Ashley McCray, a 34 year old former activist, was running on was limiting fracking wastewater injection wells to reduce related earthquakes in Oklahoma. Her opponent was the Republican Bob Anthony, who has held the position for 30 years and whose campaign was financed with help from railroad and energy companies, including BNSF, Chesapeake Energy, American Electric Power, and Koch Industries, as well as from fracking pioneer and billionaire Harold Hamm.

While McCray only managed to gain 34 percent of the vote, the local paper The Journal Record credits her campaign with shedding more light on just what the powerful corporation commission does. Industry-caused seismic activity has been a hotbed issue in Oklahoma for years and has managed to cross typical party lines.

Washington

In Washington state, Initiative 1631 was a high-stakes ballot measure proposing a first-in-the-nation fee on the state's major carbon polluters, including its oil refineries. Based on mail-in ballots counted so far, the measure appears to have beenvoted down by over 56 percent of voters.

The No on 1631 campaign, primarily financed by the oil and gas industry, including BP and Koch Industries, spent a record $31 million to oppose Initiative 1631. The measure's proponents also accused the No campaign of misleading Latino votersin the state with Spanish-language flyers that listed endorsements from a dozen Latino businesses that later said they did not understand or approve being listed.

San Luis Obispo County, California

In San Luis Obispo County, Measure G would have used the California county’s land-use powers to ban any new oil production on county land and outright ban fracking.

While the final tally may take weeks, the measure almost definitely failed. Current totals show over 56 percent of voters deciding against it.

This measure addressed an issue that will continue to gain attention across the country: water use. In California, competition for water already is fierce among its many powerful industrial interests, including agriculture, oil and gas drilling and fracking, and fishing (often reliant on dwindling rivers), as well as its large populations and environment.

The debate over water use will continue to be an election year issue in California and elsewhere, and that's before delving into the fraught issue of potential groundwater contamination from growing volumes of fracking wastewater.

Despite these issues, Measure G failed with help from $8 million of spending from the oil industry.

Arizona

In Arizona, Proposition 127was a ballot measure that would have required electric power companies to generate half of the state’s energy from renewable sources by 2030. A total of over $54 million was spent on the campaign, with big money on both sides of the issue.

However, the top spender was the industry-backed group Arizonans for Affordable Electricity, heavily supported by the state electric utility. The group spent more than $30 million to oppose Proposition 127.

The results weren’t even close: 70 percent of voters vetoed raising the renewable energy requirement.

Nevada

In Nevada, renewable energy appeared on two ballot measures.

In a proposed state constitutional amendment, Question 3 asked whether consumers should have the ability to choose their energy provider or continue only buying electricity from NV Energy, which currently holds a monopoly on the market in Nevada. As of 2015, 24 percent of NV Energy's portfolio came from renewable sources, primarily geothermal.

Clean energy advocacy groups like the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Councilopposed the measure, saying it would lead to market uncertainty and slow down the significant progress Nevada currently is making with renewable energyand rooftop solar. Billionaire Warren Buffett was among those opposing Question 3, whose No campaign raised approximately $63 million to successfully defeat the amendment, compared to $21 million spent in support.

A more direct vote for renewables in Nevada appeared on Question 6. This measure also would amend the Nevada Constitution and require electric power companies to provide 50 percent of retail customer energy from renewables by 2030. This passed with approximately 60 percent of the vote.

However, in Nevada in order to amend the constitution, the resolution must pass again in the 2020 election. Expect large amounts of money again to shower this issue in two years.

Ohio

Activists in Youngstown, Ohio, a former steel boom town, are nothing if not persistent in their efforts to ban fracking in an area at the nexus of the Utica and Marcellus shales. 2018 represented their sixth attempt to ban fracking via the ballot and they lost once again, as 55 percent voted down the ban.

Elections across the nation gave voters ample opportunity to move toward a clean energy future and away from fossil fuel reliance. In almost every case, they voted to uphold the status quo, with often record-breaking financial help from the fossil fuel industry pushing opinion in that direction.

**:{GOP:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: Congressmembers Facing Indictments Re-elected**

wa carbon fee beat 32m$

net 7 govs (odd lost in MA etc in NE?)

beto sooooo close.

... first affirmation of the wave was the volume of voters. As millions of votes are still being counted (in states like California), the votes cast so far total approximately 100 million, with experts estimating that figure will reach 111 million—a 47.3 percent national turnout. That is the first 100-million voter midterm, and the highest turnout since 1970, according to the University of Florida’s Michael McDonald.

Back to the false assertion that this isn’t a blue wave. Even as the final numbers have yet to be certified by state election officials—and won’t be for days or weeks—Democratic candidates won the popular vote for House and Senate races. As of Wednesday morning, the New York Times’ live (and therefore slowly updating) dashboard of results showed there were 4 million more votes for Democratic House candidates and 12.1 million more votes for Democratic Senate candidates. That’s a blue wave by any fact-based measure.

...

Why didn’t the Democrats win more widely—taking back a full congressional majority and not just the U.S. House? The answer is because each state has two U.S. senators, regardless of its population. That blame lies with the country’s founders and the structure of federal representative government.

The Democrats also won more widely, and with long-lasting impacts in a series of key states—just as the GOP solidified their hold in some regions, namely the lower Midwest—but Democratic disappointments surrounding the most emotionally compelling contests eclipsed their victories elsewhere. The biggest disappointments center around the vision of a “new South,” where there was great hope that Florida’s Andrew Gillum would be elected governor (he lost by fewer than 60,000 votes out of 8 million cast); that Texas’ Beto O’Rourke would be elected to a Senate seat (he lost by 115,000 votes out of 8.3 million cast); and that Georgia’s Stacey Abrams would be elected governor—where the absentee and provisional ballot counting continues. (The contest’s current leader, Republican Brian Kemp, is fewer than 20,000 votes above the 50 percent threshold, which, if not cleared, triggers an early December recount.)

These three marquee contests were all emotional races for Democrats, portending the repudiation of President Trump’s divisive leadership in one of the fastest-growing and most racially diverse regions of the country. In fact, both Gillum and O’Rourke achieved what was unthinkable for Democrats in their states. O’Rourke won 48.3 percent of the vote in Texas; several points more than President Obama’s peak. And Gillum was the first Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida to be ahead in the polls in decades. Their respective votes show how close those purple states are to tipping points; but the converse also remains true—that vast swaths of these states, from rural areas to suburbia, are deeply conservative.

Still, Florida’s biggest electoral bonanza is one that was not widely featured in election night returns but will almost certainly push the state from purple to blue in coming years. The voters passed a constitutional amendment to re-enfranchise an estimated 1.6 million felons who lost their voting rights when convicted. Florida’s ex-felon voting ban was a holdover from the racist Jim Crow and affected more voters than any other state. There will now be efforts to enroll them as voters, where, had they participated in the 2018 midterms, the state’s next governor and many legislative seats would have been in blue hands.

There were other significant Democratic victories that, like re-enfranchising Florida’s ex-felons, will resonate in the 2020s. These victories concern aspects of the redistricting process, where, unlike 2011’s GOP extreme gerrymandering, Democrats or citizens commissions (which are fairer-minded) will be in place to counterbalance aggressive Republican moves to draw districts that favor an increasingly minority political party.

The biggest redistricting-related victories come from Democrats who were elected governor in formerly red states that play outsized roles in presidential and House elections. Those blue gubernatorial victories were in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. (In contrast, Republicans won governorships in this decade’s GOP-gerrymandered states of Ohio and Florida—and it remains to be seen what happens in Georgia.) Democratic governors can wield veto pens if Republican-controlled legislatures sort voters by party to intentionally create unfair political maps.

Four states passed redistricting reforms. Independent commissions for congressional and legislative redistricting won in Colorado (Amendment Y and Amendment Z) and Michigan (Proposal 2), becoming the first east of the Rockies. Also, in Missouri, a state where the GOP has consolidated gains in recent years, Amendment 1 requires the use of a state demographer and fairness formulas when drawing maps. And in Utah, Proposition 4 also establishes an independent redistricting commission.

There were other signs that Democrats were making inroads in previously red states. In Kansas, the anti-immigrant and vote-suppressing Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, was defeated for governor by Laura Kelly, and Kansans also elected Democrat Sharice Davids, a Native American and gay woman, to the House. Davids was one of many women elected on Tuesday, from governors to House members.

Stepping back from individual contests, historians and political scientists will see 2018’s midterms as a blue wave election that showed a steady realignment in the nation’s political landscape. Yes, the Senate will be filled by more Trump acolytes, making it more partisan and pushing the federal judiciary to the right for decades to come, as the GOP majority will continue to stack the federal courts with arch conservatives. However, from a popular vote perspective, that body is not representative of the national electorate.

But in the states, significant political shifts are underway. The GOP’s lock on the entire Midwest has been broken. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—the final three states that elected Trump—are returned to blue governors. In contrast, presidential bellwethers Ohio and Missouri are becoming more conservative.

However, it appears the biggest political shifts are underway in the Sun Belt border states. Florida is on the verge of becoming permanently purple, if not blue. Georgia may yet see a Democratic governor; but if not, its voting demographics are close to Florida’s. And even in Texas—and Arizona and Florida, where the counting continues in very tight U.S. Senate races where the GOP has small leads—blue voters are at tipping points with popular majorities in sight....

5 Deceptive Republican Candidates Who Have Been Campaigning on Protections for Pre-existing Conditions While Fighting Relentlessly to Take Them Away

https://www.alternet.org/under-assault-trumps-gop-and-supreme-court-unions-lead-massive-get-out-vote-effort-midterms-we-vote

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/23/climate-deniers-cruz-wagner-higgins-harris-desantis-rohrabacher

as the midterm elections approach, DeSmog is taking this opportunity to highlight some of the top climate science deniers currently running for office in the U.S.

Did we miss someone notable? Let us know.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La)

Recently featured on DeSmog for some of his other extreme views, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana's Third Congressional District qualifies as a climate science denier on top of being a “warrior” for the natural gas industry.

Higgins told PBS News Hour in August 2017: “Climate change has always happened, that's my argument, well before, you know, we had four-wheel drive trucks and boats and Suburbans rolling around or, you know, large industrial plants and whatnot.”

And the climate denier-in-chief Donald Trump, who recently made a similarly flawed argument on 60 Minutes, tweeted his support: “We want Clay!”

North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District

North Carolina was recently devastated by Hurricane Florence, which has raised discussions of climate change in a historically skeptical state. The congressional seat in the Ninth District, which felt the impacts of Florence, is currently up for grabs after the Republican incumbent lost in the primary.

Running on the Republican side is Mark Harris, a conservative Baptist preacher and avid Trump supporter. While Harris has run for office before, he has not won.

In 2014 when asked if he believed in climate change, he simply said, “No.”

Running against Harris is Dan McCready, a Harvard Business School graduate and former marine who started a solar investment fund after graduating from Harvard. Polls show a tight race. Though both candidates were asked at a debate about their views on public education and climate change, neither directly answered the question.

This remains a close race as in two recent polls McCready led in one and Harris led in the other (although both were within the margin of error). McCready does have a major fundraising advantage over Harris for the last weeks of the campaign making this a competitive race in a district that was expected to be an easy win for Republicans.

And while the candidates aren't talking about climate change, their future constituents increasingly are. As The Washington Post recently reported, the state's extreme weather has been making believers out of former climate deniers. One Trump supporter reportedly said, “I always thought climate change was a bunch of nonsense, but now I really do think it is happening.”

Florida Governor Race

The race to be the next Governor of Florida will conclude long before the recovery from Hurricane Michael does. Notably, the current governor of Florida, Rick Scott, banned use of the phrase “climate change” in government communications.

The Republican candidate is Ron DeSantis, a three-term Congressman who recently resigned from Congress to run full-time for governor. DeSantis is a Trump favorite, with the President recently tweeting: “A great Congressman and top student at Harvard & Yale.”

In a recent debateDeSantis said he doesn’t “want to be an alarmist” — a favorite term of climate science deniers — when talking about climate change, despite commenting shortly after Hurricane Michael devastated the panhandle.

Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum got straight to the point, saying if he is elected, the people of Florida will “have a governor who believes in science, which we haven't had for quite some time in this state.” He is also campaigning on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and shifting to renewable energy.

For a state battling climate-fueledsea level rise, hurricanes,and toxic algae, a belief in science in the state house would indeed be a novelty.

The co-owner of the only house on Mexico Beach that survived Hurricane Michael with barely any damage summed up the reality when speaking with DeSmog’s Julie Dermansky: “I’m tired of politicians lying to us. The American people need to understand they are lying. The people who are denying climate change are not telling the truth.” Incidentally, he's a Republican.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)

Rep. Rohrabacher is a longtime Congressman representing Orange County, California, who is known for climate denying statements such as, “I disagree with the theory that CO2, done by mankind, is a major cause for climate change.”

Despite his district's typically conservative history (though Hillary Clinton beat Trump there by two points in 2016), Rohrabacher finds himself in a competitive race against Democrat Harley Rouda. Last week the Los Angeles Times reportedthat a national Super PAC closely aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan stopped spending money on Rohrabacher’s race — a troubling sign for his campaign— but perhaps a positive one for the climate.

Texas Senate Race

Former Republican presidential candidate and incumbent Texas Senator Ted Cruz is well known for his climate denialism. Now facing a tough challenge from newcomer Beto O’Rourke, Cruz gave a classic non-response to a question about climate change in a recent debate.

“Of course, the climate is changing,” Cruz said. “The climate has been changing since the dawn of time.”

On the other hand, Cruz’s opponent O’Rourke was quite clear on his position on climate change at the debate: “The climate is changing. And man-made climate change is a fact.”

In a state that suffered $125 billion in damages from Hurricane Harvey — which broke rainfall records for a continental U.S.city — 70 percent of adults agree global warming is happening, though only 42 percent believe that it will harm them personally.

Pennsylvania Governor Race

After belittling as “a little young and naive” an 18-year-old constituent who asked him about climate change (and his campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry), Pennsylvania Republican candidate for governor**Scott Wagner** said, “Are we here to elect a governor, or are we here to elect a scientist?" I[vid] In past comments, Wagner has used typical denier talking points when discussing climate change, saying: “I haven’t been in a science class in a long time, but the earth moves closer to the sun every year — you know the rotation of the earth. We’re moving closer to the sun.”

He went on to say: “We have more people. You know, humans have warm bodies. So is heat coming off? Things are changing, but I think we are, as a society, doing the best we can.”

In case you were wondering: No, human body heat is not causing climate change and neither is the position of the Earth to the sun. And no, climate scientists don't think we're doing the best we can.

Notable Mentions

In a debate for the open Senate seat in Arizona, Republican candidate Martha McSally responded to a question about climate change by saying, “I can’t believe this is the last question” and didn’t directly give an answer. Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema said, “I do believe that climate change is real.”

However, in response to a similar question by the Arizona Republic earlier this month, McSally, a representative who has frequently voted against the climate, acknowledged: “Our environment and the Earth's climate are changing andthere is likely a human element to it.” But she went on to call Obama's signature climate change program, the Clean Power Plan, “crushing regulation” and failed to offer any specific approach to addressing climate change in Arizona.

Not exactly denial but not exactly embracing the scientific consensus either.

And while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) isn't up for reelection this year, he lost no time in the wake of Hurricane Michael's devastation to unleash a string of climate denial talking points, including doubt that climate change is substantially caused by human activity.

When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper what he would tell his children 20 years from now about what he did to help stop the impacts of climate change, Rubio didn’t have good news for the kids: “We’re going to have to do something … But I’m also not going to destroy our economy. There’s a reality here.”

Check out this video for more of Rubio’s views on climate change.

...[curbelo]

Kochs are struggling to take leads with their targeted candidates in U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and gubernatorial races, despite spending tens of millions of dollars in independent expenditures through their affiliated groups, as well as super PACs for which they are major contributors but solicit money from other donors.

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is tracking federal races with large expenditures, mostly for advertising by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), AFP Action, Freedom Partners Action Fund (FPAF), Concerned Veterans of America (CVA), and other Koch front groups in competitive federal races.

AFP, Team Koch’s astroturf operation, has opened offices for canvassing and calls in many races, but in most of the House races where the Kochs report huge independent expenditures, Koch candidates are tied with their opponents in the polls.

In the House, the Koch network is pouring millions into races in six states and, according to an aggregation of polls by RealClearPolitics, the candidates are tied in three races, behind in two, and ahead in one. Polls are notoriously inaccurate, so the races may change.

In Iowa’s first congressional district race where the Kochs have spent money to protect incumbent Rep. Rod Blum (R) against a challenge by Abby Finkenauer (D), Finkenauer is well ahead of Blum, so much so that Republican national party organizations have all but conceded the race.

In Texas, GOP incumbent Rep. Will Hurd is only slightly ahead of his opponent Gina Ortiz Jones (D) in the 23rd district. The Kochs consider the race so important that, as CMD has reported, the Kochs are backing Hurd even though he opposed repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

In the U.S. Senate, there are statistical ties in two races, and Democratic incumbents are ahead in two races against Koch-backed challengers and behind in one against an incumbent. CMD has written about the lies in Koch ads in two of these races, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Prior to making big independent expenditures for television and digital ads in these races, AFP “thanked” Democrats for voting for GOP bills, such as on banking “reform.” This was a cynical attempt by the Kochs to tie Democrats to positions they thought were generally opposed by Democrats.

In one Senate race in North Dakota where the ads ran, the GOP challenger, Congressman Kevin Cramer (R) has slammed the Kochs for interfering in state politics, and the Kochs have stayed out. Nonetheless, Cramer is well ahead of the incumbent Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D). If Cramer wins, the Kochs can’t claim credit.

In gubernatorial races, the Kochs are spending millions on attacks ads against the candidates they oppose and positive ads for candidates they support. All three gubernatorial races are tied, with three open seats.

Latest Polling for High Koch-Spending Races

House

Illinois: Roskam* (AFP) vs. Casten (Toss-up)
Iowa: Blum* (AFP) vs. Finkenauer (Lean Finkenauer)
Minnesota: Paulsen* (AFP) vs. Phillips (Lean Paulsen)
Ohio: Chabot* (AFP) vs. Pureval (Lean Chabot)
Texas: Hurd* (AFP) vs. Ortiz (Lean Hurd)
Virginia: Brat* (AFP) vs. Spanberger (Lean Spanberger)

Senate

Wisconsin: Baldwin* vs. Vukmir (AFP) (Lean Baldwin)
Missouri: McCaskill* vs. Hawley (AFP) (Toss-up)
Tennessee: Blackburn* (AFP) vs. Bredeson (Lean Blackburn)
Florida: Nelson* vs. Scott (AFP) (Toss-up)
Montana: Tester* vs. Rosendale (AFP Action) (Lean Tester)

Gubernatorial

Florida: DeSantis (CVA, FPAF) vs. Gillum (Toss-up)
Nevada: Laxalt (FPAF) vs. Sisolak (Toss-up)
Wisconsin: Walker* (AFP) vs. Evers (Toss-up)

* Incumbent

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) — The Koch’s astroturf organization with chapters in most states, fighting in many of those on health care and tax issues. It cannot coordinate with the campaigns.

AFP Action — A newly created Super-Pac, sitting on over $6 million as of Friday, having spent $3 million on a marketing firm. AFP Action has not yet disclosed all of the races it will target but it does disclose contributors.

Concerned Veterans of America (CVA) — Another Koch front group with limited election roles doing independent expenditure.

Freedom Partners Action Fund (FPAF) — A Super-Pac like AFP Action, seemingly just starting to spend big money.

Election 2018: Clean Energy’s Future Could Rise or Fall with These Governor’s Races

fla red tide and seal elvel rise issue]

mma Climate change is still the most crucial issue facing us. And yet, it can barely warrant a mention. Donald Trump was famously not asked a single question about climate change during all primary and general election debates in 2016. The Trump administration is now forecasting a massive increase in temperatures as a result of climate change -- and also saying that it is too late to do anything about it, so we may as well loosen fuel standards. Meanwhile, Trump is still yelling about ending a war on coal.

You would think that at some point, media figures would start asking about climate change in midterm debates. Once again, they're ignoring the issue, though. The first debate between Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O'Rourke featured no questions at all about climate change.

Evlondo Cooper is tracking questions about climate change in debates -- and so far the results are bleak.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27092018/election-2018-governor-races-renewable-energy-wisconsin-maine-michigan-colorado-new-mexico-nevada

918 top dark money 15 org 3/4 total

===

ranked:

Americans for Prosperity 29 $154,654,879

National Rifle Association 37 $145,422,955

American Future Fund 27 $87,551,309

U.S. Chamber of Commerce 127 $85,647,005

Planned Parenthood Action Fund 32 $62,772,876

League of Conservation Voters 33 $49,951,741

60 Plus Association 29 $46,786,787

Americans for Tax Reform 23 $38,900,667

Americans for Job Security 80 $37,648,639

American Action Network 23 $22,082,250

VoteVets Action Fund 42 $15,412,320

Patriot Majority USA 20 $9,248,353

Crossroads GPS 10 $5,810,000

45Committee 3 $1,075,000

National Association of Realtors 0 $0

Grand Total 402 $762,964,780

Source: Issue One analysis of Fe

minn paulsen v philips

https://www.alternet.org/constituents-laugh-erik-paulsen-saying-hes-accessible

Kremlin is rooting for Republicans to keep their congressional majorities, according to a Russian media analyst -- and its state TV hosts are confident they'll win.

President Donald Trump hasn't done much to counter foreign efforts to influence the midterm elections, and has even suggested the Kremlin will work to benefit Democrats, but Russia's state TV paints a different picture, wrote journalist Julia Davis for The Daily Beast.

“Global empires like the United States are destroyed from within," said filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov on Russia's "60 Minutes." "The U.S. is deteriorating. They won’t find other fighters like (Sen. John) McCain. There won’t be any others like him. This process is irreversible.”

Russia hopes to help Trump by promoting his economic successes and create joint business opportunities, and by cultivating relationships with Republican elected officials -- some of whom have traveled this summer to Moscow.

"Naturally, Trump’s team — if they aren’t suicidal — will find arguments in support of the president," said Konstantin Zatulin, a leading figure in Putin’s United Russia party. "Those who don’t, won’t be on his team — or maybe they won’t be in Congress."

Olga Skabeeva, host of "60 Minutes," and Russian government officials have openly bragged about using active measures to promote their agenda through U.S. politics -- which they believe will further compromise Trump.

"Help him, direct him, support him -- and then you'll say he isn't ours," Skabeeva said.

Russian media reports that sanctions proposed by Trump will never be enforced and were just for show before the elections, and they say the president and his Russian counterpart quietly agreed in Helsinki to establish a business council to "unite" U.S. and Russian business interests.

“We can seriously benefit from these deals, there’s potential profit at stake," said Dmitry Abzalov, director of the Center for Strategic Communications in Moscow. "We shouldn’t let Trump down right now, our main goal right now is to help him with correct arguments. He will follow through with an internal agenda and economy.”

The Kremlin's overarching goal is to see the U.S. give up its role as the world's dominant superpower and retreat to domestic affairs and global commerce, according to Davis.

“With Americans, it’s all very clear,” said Russian state TV host Evgeny Popov. “In Iowa or someplace in Montana, they’re more concerned with the price of corn or beef than Crimea.”

However, Russia plans to pursue an even more aggressive foreign policy.

"Turns out, the first President of Russia was threatening [Bill] Clinton that the Communists will come back, take the Crimea and Alaska," said Skabeeva, the "60 Minutes" host. "We already took the Crimea, albeit without the Communists. Now it's Alaska's turn."

#Russia's state TV:

Host of "60 Minutes" Olga Skabeeva:

"Turns out, the first President of Russia was threatening [Bill] Clinton that the Communists will come back, take the Crimea and Alaska. We already took the Crimea, albeit without the Communists. Now it's Alaska's turn." ©️ pic.twitter.com/uAoiWJgoIM

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) August 31, 2018

Arizona: Kyrsten Sinema v. Martha McSally

Between the death of Sen. John McCain and Sen. Jeff Flake’s decision not to seek reelection, Arizona will have two new faces in the U.S. Senate in 2019. McCain’s seat will remain in Republican hands next year: by law, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey must appoint a Republican to fill the seat temporarily until a special election is held in 2020. But Flake’s seat is in play for Democrats, and Democratic nominee Kyrsten Sinema has been performing well in recent polls. Sinema would probably have an easier path to victory if she were running against either former Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward or former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the two extremist wingnuts Martha McSally defeated in Arizona’s GOP gubernatorial primary on August 28. But Arizona voters went with the establishment pick, nominating McSally—who is definitely right-wing but not a Tea Party loon. And McSally, like Sinema, has been representing Arizona in the U.S. House of Representatives.

According to hypothetical match-ups from various pollsters, Sinema would have defeated Ward or Arpaio by double digits. But the race becomes much tighter in a Sinema/McSally matchup. A late July poll from OH Predictive Insights found Sinema leading McSally by 4%. Democrats want Flake’s seat badly, and if Sinema wins, it would be the first time Arizona elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988.

2. Texas: Beto O’Rourke v. Ted Cruz

Texas has a reputation for being Wingnut Central, but the Long Star State isn’t as unfriendly to Democrats as some pundits believe. In major Texas cities such as Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso, it isn’t hard for Democrats to win mayoral or City Council races—Houston’s last Republican mayor, Jim McConn, left office in 1982. And Democrats have been representing parts of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. But when it comes to gubernatorial, U.S. Senate or presidential races, Republicans have been seriously dominant in Texas—which is why it is shocking to see how well Democrat Beto O’Rourke has been performing against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz in recent polls.

A new Emerson poll finds O’Rourke trailing Cruz by only 1%, and this follows recent polls showing Cruz leading by 4% (NBC News/Marist), 2% (Texas Lyceum) or 6% (Quinnipiac). Cruz, in fact, is so worried that he has asked his bitter rival from 2016, Donald Trump, to please campaign for him in Texas. Cruz still has the advantage: the Texas GOP has an incredibly strong ground game. But the fact that a Texas Senate race is turning out to be this much of a nail-biter is a huge surprise.

3. Nevada: Jacky Rosen v. Dean Heller

Of all the incumbent Senate Republicans who are seeking reelection in 2018, Nevada’s Dean Heller is said to be the most vulnerable. Heller is the only Republican senator who is up for reelection in a state that Democrat Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential race, and recent polls show Nevada’s Senate race to be incredibly tight. A Suffolk University/Reno Gazette Journal poll released in late July found Heller to be leading Democratic nominee Jacky Rosen by only 1%, while other polls show Rosen slightly ahead. And if this keeps up, it could be Wednesday, November 7—or later—before voters find out whether Heller or Rosen won.

Heller, however, shouldn’t be performing as well as he is in the polls. In 2017, the Nevada senator voted to overturn the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, and deprive Americans of Americans of health insurance—including countless entrepreneurs and small business owners. And for that reason alone, Heller deserves to be thrown out of office.

4. Florida: Bill Nelson v. Rick Scott

Florida is a perfect example of why Republicans might maintain control of the Senate even if Sinema wins in Arizona and Rosen wins in Nevada. In the Sunshine State, three-term Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is seeking a fourth term—and his Republican opponent, Gov. Rick Scott, has been performing well in recent polls. Scott is leading Nelson by 6% in a recent Florida University poll and 3% in a recent Mason-Dixon poll. Nelson was reelected by double digits in 2006 and 2012, but 2018 is proving to be more challenging for the veteran senator.

5. Missouri: Claire McCaskill v. Josh Hawley

In 2012, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (a centrist Democrat) was reelected by 15% when she defeated Todd Akin (the Republican embarrassment whose campaign was doomed after he asserted that women who are victims of “legitimate rape” rarely become pregnant). But in 2018, polls have showed a very tight race between McCaskill and Republican nominee Josh Hawley (Missouri’s attorney general). Some polls have showed McCaskill slightly ahead; others have showed Hawley slightly ahead—and along with Nelson, McCaskill is proving to be one of the more vulnerable Democratic senators seeking reelection.

...

Horrified by the very real possibility that Democrats will retake control of the House of Representatives in November, Republican lawmakers are reportedly circulating a private spreadsheet that has been dubbed the "hell list," which consists of investigations the GOP fears Democrats will launch if they are successful in the upcoming midterms.

According to Axios, which obtained a copy of the spreadsheet, the document "catalogs more than 100 formal requests from House Democrats this Congress, spanning nearly every committee."

"The spreadsheet includes requests for administration officials to be grilled by committee staff, requests for hearings to obtain sworn testimony, efforts to seize communications about controversial policies and personnel decisions, and subpoena threats," Axios reported on Sunday. "These demands would turn the Trump White House into a 24/7 legal defense operation."

While the GOP's control of the House has allowed them to shut down the minority party's investigative requests—which have touched a wide range of topics, from President Donald Trump's tax returns to the federal government's wholly inadequate response to Hurricane Maria—the prospect of Democrats winning back the House has "churned Republican stomachs," as it would give Democrats the subpoena power they currently lack.

Here are just some of the items on the GOP's spreadsheet, as reported by Axios:

President Trump's tax returns
Trump family businesses — and whether they comply with the Constitution's emoluments clause, including the Chinese trademark grant to the Trump Organization
Trump's dealings with Russia, including the president's preparation for his meeting with Vladimir Putin
The payment to Stephanie Clifford — a.k.a. Stormy Daniels
James Comey's firing
Trump's firing of U.S. attorneys
Trump's proposed transgender ban for the military
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's business dealings
White House staff's personal email use
Cabinet secretary travel, office expenses, and other misused perks
Discussion of classified information at Mar-a-Lago
Jared Kushner's ethics law compliance
Dismissal of members of the EPA board of scientific counselors
The travel ban
Family separation policy
Hurricane response in Puerto Rico
Election security and hacking attempts
White House security clearances

"Lawyers close to the White House tell me the Trump administration is nowhere near prepared for the investigatory onslaught that awaits them, and they consider it among the greatest threats to his presidency," Axios's Jonathan Swan noted on Sunday.

Reacting to reports of the GOP's secret spreadsheet on Sunday, Simon Maloy of Media Matters noted that Republicans have essentially "documented all the work they should be doing but aren't, and sent the list around to make sure everyone gets busy figuring out ways to prevent other people from doing it."

Huffington Post reporter Matt Fuller added sarcastically that the list "really highlights how seriously Republicans have taken their executive oversight responsibilities."

According to a report by the Huffington Post's Paul Blumenthal last week, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee "have asked the Republican majority to issue subpoenas related to the administration’s conduct 52 times during the first 20 months of Donald Trump's presidency. Republicans turned down each of those 52 requests. If Democrats held the committee gavel, the subpoenas would be approved."

In a statement on Friday, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)—the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee—vowed to move forward with these investigations into the Trump administration's corruption if his party takes back the House

COAL

Okla. firm tops midterm donations

E&E Daily: Thursday, August 23, 2018

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Incumbents on Capitol Hill have gotten more money from magnate Joe Craft and his coal company than any one else in the industry, the Center for Responsive Politics found.

https://www.factcheck.org/players-guide/2018/

Emily’s List/Women Vote!

June 19, 2018

Political committees devoted to electing Democratic women candidates who support a legal right to abortion.

Americas PAC

June 6, 2018

A conservative PAC that has specialized in attempting to convince minority voters to support Republican candidates.

National Rifle Association

May 21, 2018

A nonprofit that advocates for gun rights and claims more than 5 million members.

Planned Parenthood

May 16, 2018

An advocate for reproductive rights that operates three national political committees.

Restoration PAC

May 7, 2018

A conservative super PAC that supports or opposes candidates based on their adherence to the “Blueprint for the Restoration of America.”

League of Conservation Voters

April 27, 2018

An environmental group launched in 1969 that targets a “Dirty Dozen” list of politicians for defeat.

House Majority PAC

April 20, 2018

A Democratic super PAC formed in 2011.

Senate Majority PAC

April 20, 2018

A Democratic super PAC devoted to restoring a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.

Committee to Defend the President

April 20, 2018

The former Stop Hillary PAC changed its name and mission to support President Donald Trump.

Great America PAC

April 20, 2018

A traditional political action committee and super PAC hybrid that supports President Donald Trump.

Our 2018 election coverage is made possible in part through a generous donation by the Stanton Foundation. The foundation was founded by the late Frank Stanton, who was president of CBS for 25 years, from 1946 to 1971.

Club for Growth Action

April 20, 2018

The super PAC of the conservative Club for Growth, which advocates for limited government.

Priorities USA Action

April 20, 2018

A super PAC launched by former Obama White House staffers.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

April 20, 2018

The world’s largest business organization, representing more than 3 million businesses.

Senate Leadership Fund

April 20, 2018

A Republican super PAC created by allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

NextGen Climate Action Committee

April 20, 2018

NextGen Climate Action Committee is a liberal environmental advocacy organization founded by San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer.

ESAFund/Ending Spending Inc.

April 20, 2018

A fiscally conservative super PAC chaired by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts.

Congressional Leadership Fund

April 20, 2018

A super PAC formed to maintain and expand the Republican majority in the House.

American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS

April 20, 2018

Affiliated Republican groups formed with the help of Republican power players Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

American Bridge 21st Century

April 20, 2018

A liberal super PAC that conducts opposition research to aid Democratic candidates and organizations.

America First Policies

April 20, 2018

A nonprofit launched by former Trump campaign aides to support President Trump’s agenda.

outside $ snapshot 818

Vulnerable Republicans, open seats in the House and underdog candidates seeking to repeat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s intraparty upset in New York are among the storylines heading into Tuesday’s primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington.

Tuesday is also another special election litmus test of liberal enthusiasm, this time in Ohio’s 12th District, where voters haven’t elected a Democrat since the 1980s.

Kansas

In the Sunflower State, Democrats are vying for a chance to flip two of the state’s four GOP-controlled congressional seats, including one held by four-term Representative Kevin Yoder.

Third District

Yoder is among 41 incumbent House Republicans running in competitive midterm races, according to Cook Political Report. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Yoder’s Kansas City-area district by a percentage point.

In the Democratic primary, five candidates have raised at least $170,000. Tom Niermann, a history teacher, has outraised, outspent and has more cash on hand than his four opponents. Attorney Brent Welder is second in each category, having raised and spent $678,000 and $436,000, respectively.

Two other Democrats — Sharice Davids and Sylvia Williams — have each raised over $300,000 and spent six figures on the primary, however. Davids, an attorney and former MMA fighter, has also benefited from almost$679,000 in outside support from Women Vote!, a super PAC affiliated withEMILY’s List.

Yoder has a substantial war chest, however, having raised more money ($2.7 million) and with more in reserve ($1.8 million) than all the Democrats in the primary combined.

Second District

In January 2017, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, a five-term Republican representing the Topeka-area district west of Kansas City, announced she would not seek reelection, giving potential replacements plenty of time to contemplate a run.

In seeking the GOP nomination, six candidates have raised or spent at least $100,000, including Army veteran Steve Watkins, whose campaign has paced the field with over $608,000 raised and more than $483,000 spent. Kansans Can Do Anything, a super PACentirely funded by Jenkins’ father, has spent another $522,000 on his behalf.

Other Republicans in the race include Caryn Tyson and Steve Fitzgerald, both of whom have raised over $450,000.

The winner will face Democrat Paul Davis in November. Davis, a former statehouse minority leader, has the DCCC’s endorsement and about $942,000 in the bank for his post-primary campaign. Davis has to technically win the primary, but no opponent has raised or spent at least $5,000.

Michigan

Republicans represent nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts,two of which are considered toss-ups in November. Three others offer an outside shot for Democratic primary winners.

Eighth District

The state’s Eighth District, an area encompassing Lansing, is one of the toss-up districts, and where Republican incumbent Rep. Mike Bishop is seeking a third term.

Bishop is unopposed in the Republican primary but trailing his likely November opponent in fundraising. Incumbents generally raise more than challengers do. Democrat Elissa Slotkin, however, has outraised Bishop by $835,000 in pre-primary fundraising.

Slotkin, a former Obama appointee in the Defense Department, has the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and nearly $2.4 million in the bank for a run in November.

11th District

This open seat just northwest of Detroit is another toss-up race in November. GOP Rep. Dave Trott declined to run for a third term.

Ten candidates — five from each party — have raised a combined $6.8 million toward primary victories Tuesday.

Republican Lena Epstein has raised more than $1.6 million and spent over $1.3 million, the most among candidates of either party. In the Democratic primary, Suneel Gupta and Haley Stevens have each raised over $1 million and spent at least $700,000. Gupta raised close to $1.4 million to Stevens’ $1 million.

Also Tuesday, three other congressional races in Michigan offer outside chances for Democrats in November.

First District

Freshman GOP incumbent John Bergman and Democrat Matt Morgan are running unopposed in their respective primaries in this district, setting up a fall showdown. Both are creeping toward $1 million in fundraising, with Bergman ($933,000) edging Morgan ($776,000), so far.

Sixth District

First elected to Congress in 1992, Republican incumbent Rep. Fred Upton is seeking his 14th term in office. Upton’s raised $2.2 million, with almost $1.7 million cash on hand. In the Democratic primary, four of the six candidates have spent over $100,000 led by George Franklin, a former Kellogg’s lobbyist and former Bill Clinton appointee. Franklin spent nearly $617,000. Physician Matt Longjohn is second among Democrats with about $456,000 in spending.

Seventh District

With DCCC support and over $1.3 million in fundraising, Democrat Gretchen Driskell is favored in the primary. Rep. Tim Walberg, the GOP incumbent from the southeast Michigan district, raised about $1.6 million.

Senate Primary

On the Senate side, Democratic incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow is running unopposed. In the Republican primary, venture capitalist Sandy Pensler has outraised Army veteran John James, $5.2 million to $4.2 million. Stabenow, with $6.3 million in the bank and $1.2 million in outside support, is expected to hold her seat in November.

Missouri

Six of the eight congressional districts in the Show Me State are GOP-held. Only one holds potential for Democrats.

Second District

In the Democratic primary, Cort Vanostran ($858,000 raised/$403,000 spent) and Mark Osmack ($159,000 raised/$119,000 spent) top the money list among candidates. Republican incumbent Rep. Ann L. Wagner, with $2.5 million raised and $3 million in the bank, is expected to win a fourth term in the fall.

First District

This greater St. Louis district features Ferguson activist Cori Bush seeking a primary win overRep. William Lacy Clay Jr, a nine-term House member. Bush’s campaign hopes to repeat what Ocasio-Cortez did last month — upset a long-tenured, better-funded incumbent.

Senate Primary

Missouri’s Senate race will be among the most closely watched contests in November. But Tuesday’s primary is essentially decided: Republican Josh Hawley, the state’s attorney general, is favored to win. If so, Hawley would face Sen. Claire McCaskill, one of six Democratic senators running in competitive races in November. McCaskill has over $6.6 million cash on hand to Hawley’s $2.3 million.

Washington

Washington’s “jungle primary” means the top two vote-getters in Tuesday’s primary will advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. Three GOP-held House seats are in play for Democrats.

Eighth District

This open seat offers the best hope for Democrats to flip a red district in Washington, after seven-term Rep. David Reichert opted not to run for reelection.

In the primary, Republican Dino Rossi is running with a large fundraising advantage over his potential Democratic opponents. Rossi, a former state senator, has raised nearly $3 million with $1.8 million left over and has been backed by $200,000 in spending by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Three other well-funded candidates are running for spots on the November ballot. Among Democrats, pediatrician Kim Schrier leads the pack in money raised ($1.6 million), spent ($949,000) and available cash ($655,000). Women Vote! and other progressive groups have also added about $238,000 in outside support.

Others Democrats in the primary include attorney Jason Rittereiser and Shannon Hader, a former Centers for Disease Control division director. Both candidates have raised over $800,000 and spent over $500,000 ahead of the primary. About half of Hader’s funding ($426,000) is self-financed. The Seattle Timesendorsed her last month.

Party control of this Central Washington district east of Seattle is considered a toss-up.

Fifth District

Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is seeking an eighth term in the state’s easternmost district. Rodgers and Democrat Lisa Brown, a former statehouse majority leader and chancellor of Washington State University in Spokane, are the only two candidates who have raised or spent at least $5,000 in the race.

Rodgers leads Brown in fundraising, with $3.8 million raised and $1.2 million leftover. But Brown’s $2.4 million raised and $921,000 leftover are strong numbers for a challenger this early in the midterm cycle.

Cook Political Report has the race leaning Republican in November.

Third District

Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler appears likely to win a fifth term in the state’s rural, southernmost district. President Trump in 2016 and Mitt Romney in 2012 each carried the district, and Cook Political considers the seat Likely Republican.

Among Democrats in the primary, Army veteran and attorney David McDevitt has spent only $56,000 on his campaign, which is about 96 percent self-financed. Carolyn Long, a Washington State University political science professor, has spent nearly $540,000 for a shot at Beutler’s seat.

Ninth District

Like Cori Bush in Missouri, Democrat Sarah Smith is hoping to pull anOcasio-Cortez-like upset against a better-funded incumbent in the form of Democrat Rep. Adam Smith ($600,000 raised and $624,000 spent). Sarah Smith’s campaign raised $57,000 and spent $41,000 ahead of the primary. No other candidate raised or spent at least $5,000.

Ohio Special Election

Tuesday is also a special election for the vacated seat of former Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi. The 12th District race pits Republican state Sen. Troy Balderson and Democrat Danny O’Connor, an Ohio county recorder.

Outside groups have spent nearly $7.2 million in support or opposition of the two candidates. The conservativeCongressional Leadership Fund and theNational Republican Congressional Committeeaccount for the majority of it, having nearly spent a combined $3.3 million opposing O’Connor and $4.5 million overall.

O’Connor has outraised and outspent Balderson, however, and a Monmouth Universitypoll released this week found the race a toss-up.

Trump plansto travel to Ohio on Saturday for a rally in support of Balderson.

whoohoo

https://www.alternet.org/missouri-right-work-proposition-defeated

on Tuesday night, voters in Missouri defeated Proposition A, a referendum which would have allowed a "right to work" law to go into effect in the state.

This marked the first time a right to work law has ever been defeated by popular vote. It is an enormous setback for Missouri Republicans, who had made imposing this law a signature policy goal after winning full control of the state government in 2016.

Right to work laws, which currently exist in 27 states, ban labor unions and businesses from negotiating a "security agreement" in bargaining, in which a union may collect "agency fees" from workers who are not a member of the union. Since unions generally represent all workers in a workplace, not simply their own members, these fees cover the cost of bargaining for nonmembers and prevent free ridership — and lead to wage increases. Corporations and right-wing politicians, however, have painted these fees as a threat to individual freedom and sought to pass laws banning them — which has depressed union membership and wages around the country. Earlier this year, they persuaded the Supreme Court to void all such security agreements in public sector unions. Workers in the private sector, however, are still free to pursue them in states without right to work laws.

In February 2017, then-Gov. Eric Greitens — who later resigned amid an unrelated sexual assault and blackmail scandal — signed the right to work bill in Missouri. In response, outraged union workers got a referendum on the ballot to overturn it, with AFL-CIO mobilizing steelworkers and construction workers to go door to door to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Republicans were desperate to win this vote, even going so far as to pass a law moving the referendum from the November ballot to the August primary in the hope lower turnout would kill the measure. But in the end, it wasn't even close. Voters rejected right to work 67.5 to 37.5.

In Missouri, workers stood up and said no to the erosion of their right to organize. And the business interests pushing to undermine unions have been put on notice.

ca big

https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-hope-blue-wave-november-dangerous-democracy

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/they-can-just-have-cartoon-new-book-reveals-obamas-real-reaction-trump-election

evil mfer confirmed:

Rhodes also writes about Obama's farewells to world leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly told Obama that Trump's victory made her feel a greater obligation to run for a fourth term which she ended up winning. When she left Obama for the last time, she "had a single tear in her eye."

Obama also apparently felt that, despite the criticism he has since received, there was little more he could have done to counter Russian interference in the 2016 election. Calling out the meddling efforts even more than he did would have resulted in Trump saying Obama was rigging the election and Putin working harder to undermine the vote, the president feared.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pointedly refused to issue a bipartisan statement condemning Russia' actions when Obama wanted to take action, limiting his options. Rhodes called this refusal "staggeringly partisan and unpatriotic," but he says Obama was unsurprised...

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/05/24/who-are-2018-koch-candidates

At the 2018 Koch Donor Summit in January, the network of billionaires convened by Charles and David Koch announced that it plans to spend $400 million in the 2018 midterm election cycle, close to double the amount spent in the 2014 midterms and a 60 percent increase over the 2016 election cycle. The Kochs had planned to spend $900 million in the 2016 election cycle, but ended up spending less after Trump won the Republican nomination. “We will be spending more than any midterm in our network history,” Americans for Prosperity’s president Tim Phillips said.

“My challenge to all of us is to increase the scale and effectiveness of this network by an order of magnitude, by another tenfold on top of all the growth and progress we’ve already made,” Charles Koch said to more than500 attendees, who each donated at least $100,000 in 2017.

That “progress,” detailed in documents revealed by *The Intercept*, includes backing out of the Paris Climate Accord, undoing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, getting Neil Gorsuch confirmed to SCOTUS, and Trump’s massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.

The Kochs’ network has already spent 35-40 percent of the $400 million pledged, according to Phillips. This includes money spent on policy campaigns and state-level efforts. Americans for Prosperity is “active” in 36 states.

A close examination of campaign finance disclosures from the Koch Industries Political Action Committee (KochPAC) shows that Team Koch has identified, and isinvesting heavily in, candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. To date, all but four of the Koch candidates are Republican.

The Kochs spend much of their money on i360, its data analytics company, which compiles information on the “199 million active voters,” and on its array of front groups, including Americans for Prosperity, Libre Initiative, Concerned Veterans for America, Generation Opportunity, and Freedom Partners Action Fund. Koch Industries also attempts to indoctrinate its 50,000 employees on whom and what to vote for or against.

During the 2016 election cycle, some of these groups endorsed candidates, but none have come out with endorsements to date for this cycle.

The disclosed spending of the Kochs through their KochPAC is only part of a much larger electoral operation.

Without further ado, below are the Koch Candidates of 2018. Stay tuned to ExposedByCMD for more on the Kochs’ electoral activities and the Koch Candidates 2018 page on SourceWatch for regular updates between now and the November election.

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

...

primary

Trump adoring Republican learned the following.

There is a deep state, unelected bureaucrats that they must extricate.
Disregard the mainstream media. Illegal immigrants continue to rush the border. [LIE]
California is running a massive deficit. [LIE]
They won't cut Social Security for old folks, but migration to privatization for the future is their policy [2008 anybody?]
They will uphold the second amendment at all cost.

https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/

https://www.opensecrets.org/races/special-elections/

5/4/18

t recent filings, current candidates running in House and Senate races nationwide have raised more than $1 billion in the 2018 cycle with six months still left to go.

157 candidates running for the U.S. Senate have raised an average of $2.3 millionwhile 1519 candidates running for the House of Representatives have raised an average of just under $446 thousand.

ads, heat map

https://www.opensecrets.org/ad-data/

The Koch political network has announced plans to spend substantial money to target incumbent Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, among them Sen. Jon Tester, (D-Mont.), the committee’s ranking Democrat.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/382030-gop-worries-blankenship-surge-will-cost-party-w-va-senate-seat

OMFG

W.VA. — A former coal CEO’s post-prison rise is scrambling the GOP battle to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin(W.Va.).

Don Blankenship, released from jail less than a year ago, now appears to be within striking distance of the party’s nomination.

Strategists — and even his primary opponents — acknowledge he’s managed to turn an expected showdown between Rep. Evan Jenkins(W.Va.) and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey into a three-way fight with roughly a month to go until the May 8 primary election.

“It is a weird little race right now, [but] it’s looking like a legitimate three-person race,” said a national GOP strategist who is monitoring the Senate fight.

Blankenship’s anti-establishment message is resonating in a state that has turned increasingly red. Recent internal polling from Morrisey and Jenkins place him in second place — with first place varying based on the candidate releasing the polling.

Global Carbon Emissions Rise for First Time Since 2014

Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy increased for the first time in 2017 after three years of remaining flat, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday, meaning the world remains far off course in curbing planet warming emissions.

Carbon emissions reached a record-high of 32.5 gigatonnes in 2017 due to global economic growth and increased energy demands that was met mostly by fossil fuels. As the Financial Times noted, that growth—an increase of 460 million tonnes—is the equivalent to the emissions of an additional 170 million cars.

These findings are part of the Paris-based IEA's "Global Energy and CO2 Status Report" released today.

The report shows that global energy demand rose by 2.1 percent last year (or 14,050 million tonnes of oil equivalent), more than twice the rate in 2016. Oil, natural gas and coal met more than 70 percent of additional need, while renewable energy met just about the rest.

...

lappe

https://www.alternet.org/activism/democracy-reform-tour-democracy-pennsylvania

===

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-koch-charles-koch-network-is-going-all-in-for-2018-midterms/

Indian Wells, Calif. —The network backed by Charles and David Koch realizes 2018 will be a challenging environment — and they're going "all in" to defend their policy priorities and candidates who support them, to the likely tune of roughly $400 million. That would be likely the largest investment the Koch network — the affiliated groups backed by the brothers and donors — has ever had in a midterm election, and significantly more than the roughly $250 million they spent during the 2016 presidential cycle.

Last summer, the Koch brothers' political network projected it would spend $300 to $400 million on politics and policy in the election, but now, spending will be on the "high end" of that.

Steve Wynn, casino mogul, resigns as top GOP finance chairman

"So we're all in," said Tim Phillips, the president of the network's political advocacy arm Americans for Prosperity, at a gathering of the Koch-affiliated Seminar Network in Indian Wells, Calif., Saturday.

Allies of the network — about 700 of them — are meeting this weekend to discuss the intersection of policy, politics and philanthropy in 2018 and beyond. The tone of leaders in the Koch network Saturday, the first day of the three-day gathering, was one of optimism, coming off of what Phillips described as perhaps the most effective policy year yet. They count reforms in the Department of Veterans Affairs, the nomination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, and — perhaps most of all — tax reform as significant, long-lasting accomplishments in Washington, D.C.

But there's no denying that history and polling don't favor Republicans, the party with which the Kochs have generally aligned themselves. According to Real Clear Politics, Democrats, on the generic House ballot, Democrats beat Republicans by about 8 points, as of polls aggregated between Jan. 8 and Jan. 23. Historically, midterm elections don't favor the party in power, as Phillips was quick to highlight. Elections in Virginia and elsewhere have revealed momentum for Democrats.

"The left is energized, there's no question about that," Phillips said.

The financial support comes, coincidentally, as the Republican National Committee loses finance chair Steve Wynn, who resigned after the Wall Street Journal reported alleged extensive sexual misconduct. Wynn, a casino mogul, was a major backer of Republican candidates.

The unspoken aspect of the challenging 2018 environment is President Trump, who continues to struggle with approval ratings lower than his recent predecessors at this point in their presidencies. The Koch brothers themselves declined to spend anything on the 2016 presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. But that tone seems to have shifted since the 2016 election, and Koch-related entities are finding ways to work with the Trump administration. Marc Short, for instance, the White House's director of legislative affairs, previously worked in Koch world, at Freedom Partners.

Now, they want to protect what they consider significant accomplishments in the administration, and work to further them.

Part of that includes an infusion of up to $20 million on selling tax reform to the public — after already spending $20 million on passing the legislation Mr. Trump signed into law at the end of last year.

Other than that, much of their spending strategy in 2018 has yet to be seen. But, it likely won't be focused on the upcoming primary races.

"Historically, we have not gotten involved with primaries," Phillips said.

Leaders in the Koch network on Saturday were hesitant to share what specific requirements they might have for backing candidates, on immigration or any other policy area. The Seminar Network on Saturday issued a statement Saturday supporting the White House's proposal for a path to citizenship for young immigrants, but expressed concern over the proposal to end extended family-based migration.

"If you're not a champion, it's going to be hard to support you," said James Davis, president of In Pursuit Of, the relatively new public relations arm affiliated with the Koch network.

"We're going to be there for our champions, and that's what we've consistently said and done."

===

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/koch-brothers-network-planning-massive-spending-increase-for-2018-midterms

WELLS, Calif. — Charles Koch and members of his Seminar Network — donors who contribute a minimum of $100,000 to the various political action and philanthropic organizations run by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers — have big plans for the midterm elections.

At a retreat this weekend, the group announced plans to spend between $300 million and $400 million in 2018 — a 60 percent increase from its spending in 2016 — to defend Trump administration policies that Charles and David Koch and their network overwhelmingly support— while distancing themselves from a man that some believe is personally unfit to serve as president.

President Donald Trump is “not the greatest human being,” said Liz Wright a staunch libertarian from Colorado who voted for the independent Gary Johnson in the 2016 presidential election. “I’m not a fan, but I think he’s done an amazing job of putting in policies that really are changing the trajectory of the country.”

This is the compromise many members of the Koch network seem to have made.

“We’re voting for a chief executive who makes good decisions,” Pick said.“We’re not voting for [a] best friend,” said Jacki Pick, a first-time attendee from Austin, Texas, who works in the energy sector. Pick praised Trump’s policies and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic who supports increasing oil and gas development.

The Koch brothers network is pledging to up its political spending because of the difficult political environment the Republican Party faces in November. With a number of retirements and Trump’s low approval rating, there is increased concern among many conservatives that more GOP seats could be vulnerable in the fall.

Trump “is not a nice person and he’s alienating a lot of people, similar to the way Obama destroyed the Democratic Party,” said Wright, a reference to the Republicans’ historic gains in the midterm elections of 2010.

Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers primary political organization, acknowledged the midterm elections are “challenging,” arguing that the GOP needed to improve its messaging around the tax bill. The party has to make “people connected to the benefits of the tax bill,” Phillips said. His group has committed an additional $20 million to fund a campaign focused on championing the bill, which was Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress’ top legislative victory in 2017.

Charles Koch launched the biannual event with a poolside cocktail party at the Renaissance Resort in Indian Wells, California. “We’ve made more progress in the last five years than I have in the previous 50,” he said in a speech.

Koch challenged his supporters to increase their output ten-fold, a project the Network has dubbed “10x.”

The retreat and its theme, “Breaking Barriers,” also highlighted the Network Seminar’s work outside of politics.

Koch released a film, ,” over the weekend that tells the story of the Seminar’s overall goals, which include education and criminal justice reform.

The Kochs “started with policy and that is the real interest. Most people here have been involved with philanthropy and engaged with education reform their entire adult lives,” said Randy Kendrick, a conservative donor from Arizona who is married to the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team.

The Network Seminar also includes a growing philanthropic division, Stand Together, that supports non-profits aligned with the organization’s goals, and has become a venture fund seeding money to enable successful non-profits to grow.

The 2018 retreat was the Network Seminar’s largest gathering ever, with 550 attendees including 160 first-timers. The three-day policy conference focused criminal justice reform, free speech, reducing regulations, and creating opportunities for all.The initiative has helped organizations like Rising Tide Capital, a New Jersey-based firm that educates potential entrepreneurs in management and micro-finance, and PHOENIX, a fitness-focused recovery program that uses outdoor activities like hiking, climbing, and boxing to provide paths forward for those fighting through addiction.

Several elected officials attended the retreat, which gives Republicans access to wealthy donors and party activists. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., were all featured Saturday night at the opening dinner, and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, also made an appearance.

===

but we're tracking the contests that are expected to be hottest in 2018, based on analysis by prominent pollsters. This page highlights the races that we expect to become more competitive - and possibly more expensive...

One block of races that is already attracting a large amount of attention (and money) are the ten Senate races featuring an incumbent Democrat seeing reelection in a state won in 2016 by President Donald Trump. Thus far, the incumbent Democrats are winning in the fundraising game, as we highlighted in our article published earlier this week, "Democrats take a chance on Trump states". However, a large amount of conservative outside spending is being focused on attacking these candidates, with Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin seeing the most negative adsso far. Expect to hear more about these races as November gets closer...

2/18

California District 04

Total Raised by Candidate:

Jessica Morse (D)	$554,531
Tom McClintock (R)*	$422,479
Regina Bateson (D)	$194,699
Roza Calderon (D)	$77,465
Rochelle Wilcox (D)	$15,738

California District 07

Total Raised by Candidate:

Ami Bera (D)*	$917,587
Andrew Grant (R)	$164,861
Yona Barash (R)	$40,925
Brad Westmoreland (D)	$833

California District 10

Total Raised by Candidate:

Jeff Denham (R)*	$1,511,850
Josh Harder (D)	$922,542
T J Cox (D)	$181,586
Sue Zwahlen (D)	$82,961
Virginia Madueno (D)	$45,456
Mike Barkley (D)	$36,102
Dotty Nygard (D)	$33,278
Lisa Battista (D)	$7,028
Terra Snover (I)	$428
Seth Vaughn (D)	$417
Mateo Morelos Bedolla (D)	$104

California District 25

Total Raised by Candidate:

Steve Knight (R)*	$670,582
Bryan Caforio (D)	$458,568
Katie Hill (D)	$440,736
Jess Phoenix (D)	$124,170
Diedra Greenaway (D)	$2,057

California District 34

Total Raised by Candidate:

Jimmy Gomez (D)*

$919,472

California District 39

Total Raised by Candidate:

Andy Thorburn (D)	$2,142,373
Gil Cisneros (D)	$729,979
Mai-Khanh Tran (D)	$609,080
Phil Janowicz (D)	$250,800
Sam Jammal (D)	$158,477
Steve Cox (I)	$1,162
Ted Rusk (D)	$0

California District 45

Total Raised by Candidate:

Mimi Walters (R)*	$1,518,619
Katie Porter (D)	$473,366
Brian Forde (D)	$469,417
David Min (D)	$464,175
Kia Hamadanchy (D)	$309,304
Ron Varasteh (D)	$252,426
Eric Rywalski (D)	$24,474
John Graham (I)	$5,300

California District 48

Total Raised by Candidate:

Dana Rohrabacher (R)*	$843,134
Harley Rouda (D)	$600,292
Omar Siddiqui (D)	$577,025
Hans Keirstead (D)	$464,307
Michael Kotick (D)	$236,727
Stelian Onufrei (R)	$202,000
Laura Oatman (D)	$163,389
Brandon Reiser (L)	$11,111
Kevin Thomas Kensinger (I)	$2,963
Scott Baugh (R)	$140

California District 49

Total Raised by Candidate:

Mike Levin (D)	$916,969
Douglas L. Applegate (D)	$527,133
Paul Kerr (D)	$501,462
Rocky Chavez (R)	$0

California District 50

Total Raised by Candidate:

Duncan D Hunter (R)*	$404,103
Ammar Campa-Najjar (D)	$340,499
Josh Butner (D)	$315,965
Pierre Beauregard (D)	$23,147
Daniel Casara (R)	$18,810
Gloria Chadwick (D)	$15,343
Patrick Malloy (D)	$347

California Senate Race

Total Raised by Candidate:

Dianne Feinstein (D)*	$6,933,100
Pat Harris (D)	$279,777
David Hildebrand (D)	$15,033
Douglas Pierce (D)	$9,000
Michael Eisen (I)	$5,552
Jerry Leon Carroll (I)	$60
Steve Stokes (D)	$33

https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/democrats-target-2018-races-12-states-prevent-another-decade-republican-gerrymanders

Forget, for a minute, which party controls the House after November’s elections. There’s another decision that will be made this fall that will determine if Republicans will likely dominate the 2020s as they have this decade, in Congress and state capitals.

That fateful decision concerns whether the GOP will monopolize the process for revising political maps that will hold for a decade of congressional and state legislative elections starting in 2022. Ten years ago, after being trounced by President Obama and seeing Democrats take full control of Congress, Republicans plotted a comeback by targeting this same process in 16 states. They wanted to monopolize redistricting and they did, producing gerrymanders that diluted Democrats’ power.

On Wednesday, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee revealed its 2018 strategy. The NDRC is targeting 12 states it believes hold the key to preventing another decade of runaway Republican rule. Their strategy is not to turn the tables on the GOP—they can’t; they’re too far behind. Rather, Democrats hope to elect a slate of governors wielding veto pens and to retake enough state legislative chambers to force Republicans to negotiate sharing power.

“During the last redistricting process in 2011, Republicans had trifecta control [the governor and both legislative chambers] in 19 states, which gave them complete power over the drawing of 213 congressional districts,” the committee said. “The NDRC is committed to changing that and making sure Democrats have a seat at the table in the 2021 redistricting process.”

“This is a critical election year for redistricting because it is the first cycle where the officials elected will serve during the redistricting process in 2021,” the NDRC continued. “NDRC is targeting 12 states during the 2018 election cycle, including 9 gubernatorial races, 20 legislative chambers, 2 ballot initiatives, and 2 down-ballot races. There are 8 additional states on our Watch List.”

While Americans keep hearing that the House will be up for grabs as 2018 is turning into a blue wave year, these statewide races—especially for governor where there are open seats due to term limits—are arguably more important if one doesn’t want to live under outsized GOP rule for another dozen years.

“People need to keep in mind that the GOP has key structural advantages,” said David Daley, author of Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy, which documents the GOP’s gerrymander of 2011. “Turnout [next fall] matters. Democrats need to run everywhere, while prioritizing ruthlessly: if they miss these targets in 2018, they will not have another shot at the maps in many of these states until 2031.”

“They also need to understand taking back the House and having a seat at the table in redistricting are two different things,” he continued. “The first could happen. But the second is arguably more important — and that’s a harder, longer fight that needs to be measured in flipping state legislative chambers in key states, and winning seats at the table in 2021.”

Indeed, getting that negotiating power is the goal, NDRC founder, former Attorney General Eric Holder, told theNew York Times. “From my perspective, success is if you break a trifecta… I don’t think that in December of 2018, you measure success by whether you have assumed control of a particular state.”

NDRC’s 2018 Targets

To break up red-state monopolies, NDRC is targeting open governors’ seats in Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Florida, Colorado, Nevada and Maine. The NDRC also wants to keep Democratic governors in office in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, just as it wants to challenge GOP governors and legislators in Wisconsin and New Hampshire.

In some states, like Ohio, the NDRC will also be targeting the secretary of state and auditor races, as those officials sit at the table shaping political maps. In other states, like Nevada, it wants to break the GOP’s legislative monopoly. It is also targeting ballot initiatives in Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and South Dakota.

These priorities make sense, Daley said.

...

https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/florida-felon-voting-rights-restoration-campaign-threshold-getting-november-2018

A grassroots campaign to amend Florida’s constitution to restore the voting rights of upwards of 1.5 million Floridians who have been convicted of non-violent felonies and completed their sentences is poised to qualify for the November 2018 ballot.

By Wednesday, the Florida Department of State has certified more than 745,000 petition signatures of the 766,000 needed to get on the ballot. The proposed constitutional amendment also has to meet signature thresholds in 14 legislative districts and has done so in 12 of them, campaign organizers said.

“In total, we submitted well over 1.1 million petitions to the supervisors of elections offices all across the state, from Pensacola to Key West,” campaign manager Jackie Lee said on a conference call Tuesday. “And all the petitions, we think, where we needed to verify, were also all in by December 29th, to ensure that we could make the ballot. We all know they needed to be verified by February first. So because of all of your hard work, we had them in on time. We’re... actually even excited to submit a couple right after that date because they kept on coming in from all around the state.”

The felon rights restoration effort is one of America’s most important electoral initiatives in 2018. More than 10 percent of Florida’s voting-age population, 1.7 million residents, have lost their voting rights under the nation’s most punitive felon disenfranchisement law—a statute that has its roots in the Old South’s racist Jim Crow culture.

“This amendment restores the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation,” the legal petition states. “The amendment would not apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, who would continue to be permanently barred from voting unless the governor and cabinet vote to restore their voting rights on a case-by-case basis.”

Florida is the third most populous state, with slightly more than 20 million people. In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 1.2 percent, which was slightly less than 113,000 votes, to win its 29 Electoral College votes. Should 60 percent of Floridians—the threshold for passage—who vote next fall approve the constitutional amendment, it could deeply alter the state’s politics as well as its criminal justice system.

The campaign’s organizers, led by Desmond Meade, a former felon who became a lawyer, are casting their effort as a redemption-steeped crusade to give a second chance to all of those who have done their time for non-violent crimes. In a teleconference organized by Floridians for a Fair Democracy Tuesday, he repeatedly emphasized this was a moral crusade and avoided any discussion of the political consequences.

“I want to make sure we are oriented right back where we started from,” Meade told the 150 activists, including clergy, on the call. “When each and every one of you made a decision to be involved in this campaign, it was based around people. It was based around the personal stories of your family members and your friends who were looking for second chances in Florida. And I think it is this orientation that has not only gotten us this far, but will take [us] across this finish line. It’s not about anything else. It’s not about politics. At the core of this, it’s about everyday all-American citizens, who just want a second chance.”

Meade’s framing, which reflects his life story, has resounded because Florida has so many ex-felons who cut across society. Only 30 percent are black, campaign organizers said, and a great many were victims of overzealous drug war prosecutions. Evidence of that deep resonance can be found in the fact that nearly a quarter-million of the petition signatures gathered were collected from volunteers, not paid circulators.

“We are very confident with moving forward with the campaign,” said Lee. “As of right now before the call, we are at 745,000 verified of the 766,200 that we need. So we are approaching that overall number and we are also verified in 12 of the 14 [legislative] districts that we need. So we are marching forward.”

Emphasizing Redemption, Not Political Power

...

ELECTION '18

Democrats Could Flip Another Longtime GOP Seat, As Republicans Nominate a 'Wacky' Candidate in Pennsylvania

Republicans also have doubts about their nominee.

By Bob Brigham / Raw Story

December 23, 2017

Fired up after a remarkable victory in the Alabama special election, Democrats are setting their sights on a western Pennsylvania congressional election in March as their next opportunity to capitalize upon the backlash against President Donald Trump, Politico reports.

Congressman Tim Murphy (R-PA) resigned in October after it was revealed that the “pro-life” politician asked a mistress to get an abortion, resulting in the March 13 special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district.

Democrats nominated Conor Lamb, a 33-year-old Marine veteran and former assistant U.S. attorney who hails from a prominent Allegheny County political family. Republicans nominated state Rep. Rick Saccone, who has billed himself as a strong support of President Trump.

“Rick, with his age and experience, is more than qualified, but he isn’t the sparkle of everyone’s eye, while Conor is a tall, blonde, blue-eyed stud of a Marine,” said William J. Green, a political analyst on KDKA radio in Pittsburgh. “There’s no question that Republicans are worried about the contrast.”

Republicans also have doubts about their nominee.

Citing two GOP sources, Politico reports some local Republicans are anticipating Rep. Saccone could lose the special election and are seeking to draft state Senator Guy Reschenthaler to run in the regular primary in May. Senator Reschenthaler lost the nomination to Saccone at the GOP convention in November.

Rep. Saccone has “never raised any money and he’s never had any real organization before,” one Republican strategist who works on Pennsylvania races said. “There’s enough out there with Saccone to make him so wacky that Republicans — particularly moderate Republicans in the suburban areas — say this isn’t my cup of tea.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are excited about their nominee....

https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/can-democrats-extend-blue-wave-swept-doug-jones-office-2018

...Jones’ victory was many things. It was a triumph for grassroots organizing in a state that hadn’t seen a Democratic upset in years. It was an affirmation that a good candidate can inspire people to turn out in droves to defeat a bad candidate who turns off his party’s base and the public. And it was perhaps a sign that voters have had enough of the tribalism that infects modern politics, epitomized by the GOP under Donald Trump.

But how much of what Jones accomplished in Alabama can be applied or repeated elsewhere? In some ways, his election was a special case. Sex scandal-plagued Roy Moore was a truly terrible candidate. Most establishment Republicans avoided him or kept away until the end—like President Trump and the national party committees. It was also a surprise that might not have happened if Sen. Richard Shelby hadn't told fellow Republicans to write in another name—not Moore's. (There were nearly 23,000 write-in votes; 2,100 more than Jones' margin of victory.)

While these dynamics are unlikely to recur in 2018, there are takeaways from Alabama that apply to the most critical congressional and gubernatorial races next year. That's when two-thirds of the Senate contests are incumbent Democrats facing re-election and Democrats need 24 seats to retake the House. While there are unknowns, such as how much the GOP tax plan and Trump will weigh down Republican candidates, there is a starting-line landscape found in red-run states like Alabama. That's where the GOP has spent this decade creating supermajorities and voting rules that benefit them and undermine Democrats.

That red-state gamingof the electoral field begins with extreme redistricting, or segregating each party’s reliable voters to give GOP candidates a 6-to-8 percent lead in their districts. It continues by suppressing Democratic turnout via stricter voter ID requirements, which knocks off another 2 to 3 percent in the fall, followed by other voter suppression measures. (These figures are cited in court rulings, congressional studies and academic papers.)

Jones’ victory underscores key lessons about the hurdles facing Democrats next year in states like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan. The big takeaway, as evidenced by every major election in 2017, including Alabama, is that winning takes a giant turnout wave supporting Democrats, and a corresponding average turnout from Republican voters.

Wave Elections and Turnout

That's the pattern that voter turnout experts saw in Alabama. The wave was most visibly led by the African-American community, whose voting rights heritage gave the nation Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a moral imperative to vote no matter what. But there was also high pro-Jones turnout in college towns and among suburbanites, many of whom voted for Trump in 2016. These trends were noted on Twitter posts by election experts Tuesday and in analyses of media exit poll data on Wednesday.

The first sign that Jones could win was seen in the extraordinary high turnout by African Americans.

“Amazing: turnout is at 72%-77% of ‘16 presidential race in heavily black counties, but just 55%-60% in rural white counties. Black voters punching above their weight tonight & giving Jones a chance,” tweeted the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman on Tuesday as the precinct-by-precinct returns were rolling in.

“To win, Jones needs: 1) Ridiculous Dem margins in Birmingham/Montgomery 2) Strong crossover from college whites in Huntsville/Shelby 3) Not much drop-off from '16 turnout in Black Belt 4) Weak/typical off year turnout among non-college whites,” Wasserman predicted on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he tweeted. “What happened last night? All four of these things.”

“Hot takes that #ALSEN Republicans stayed home I think are incorrect,” McDonald tweeted. “Turnout is typically low in a special special election. Republican counties turned out at a rate we might typically expect, perhaps even more so given the competitive race. Democrat turnout was through the roof.”Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor and turnout expert, debunked the claim that Alabama Republicans stayed home. What happened, he said, was that the state's GOP base behaved just as predicted in any off-year special election.

The pro-GOP Weekly Standard also noted that many whites voted for Jones as well.

“Jones won a substantial number of white voters,” David Byler noted. “According to exit polls, Jones won 31 percent of white voters and 96 percent of black voters. Typically, Democrats win large majorities of black voters in southern states while losing many white voters. In 2012, the exit polls showed President Obama earning 15 percent of the white vote. And while exit polls do have their disadvantages, it’s worth noting that the New York Times’ Upshot also estimated that Obama won 16 percent of the white vote in 2012. Jones did significantly better with white voters while still holding onto lopsided margins with black voters.”

The New York Times noted Jones won big among women in upscale suburbs, generally a Republican haven. That figure is not surprising, given that several Alabama women said Moore had sexually preyed on them in their teen years, while Jones was a prosecutor who convicted KKK members whose bombs killed several black teenage girls.

Momentum Going Into 2018

Looking to 2018, it’s clear the electorate’s energy and enthusiasm have shifted from Republicans and independents electing Trump to growing factions backing Democratic candidates. In every major election this year, Democrats have done far better than expected. But that doesn’t mean they won on Election Day.

Jon Ossoff, in Georgia’s sixth U.S. House district, who lost amid dubious vote counts—and post-Election Day disclosures that the state had destroyed his race's vote count records—still did better than any Democrat in his district in years.

Last month in Virginia, Democrat Ralph Northam won the governor’s race and a surge of voters backing Democrats brought the party to the brink of retaking the House of Delegates, despite a 2011 gerrymander that gave the GOP a supermajority. The GOP is up by two seats, while four races are being recounted, starting this week.

Jones’ victory is also remarkable because Alabamians experienced voter suppression tactics, according to accounts posted on Twitter by political reporters and election protection attorneys. These obstructions that can make the difference in close elections.

On Tuesday, many polling places were unprepared and experienced long lines. There were voting machine breakdowns and shortages. There was police intimidation of voters, checking IDs for people with outstanding fines. There were voters that had been incorrectly purged. There were others complaints of voters not receiving absentee ballots. There was confusion over poorly designed ballots. All of these are unnecessary hurdles to what should be a straightforward process.

Election observers squarely blamed Alabama’s hyper-partisan GOP Secretary of State, John Merrill, for much of that dysfunction. Merrill’s low voter turnout estimates left polls unprepared for Tuesday’s turnout, which one turnout expert said was “bordering on malpractice.” As late as Tuesday on national TV, Merrill predicted only 25 percent of the state’s 3.3 million registered voters would turn out, when 40 percent did—a figure every academic turnout expert had predicted based on recent special elections.

Fair-minded Americans should be cheered by Alabama’s results. For once, a deserving candidate, supported by a diverse and energized grassroots coalition, inspired a flood of citizens to turn out and not be deterred from voting. But it took a giant wave just to barely beat an unusually bad candidate, including an unexpected last-minute assist from the state's senior Republican senator.

Democrats will have to repeat this giant wave in 2018 to breach the red-state barriers that stand between them and winning back control of Congress and key governorships. In red-run swing states that should be politically purple, the GOP has a 10 percent starting line advantage. Even with a large turnout wave, there's no telling what surprises await—for better or worse....

dent bails

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-weary-gop-braces-wave-retirements-congressional-republicans

...

Even with the 2018 midterm elections still 18 months away, both Republicans and Democrats are making moves to strengthen their most vulnerable incumbents.

One way they’re doing it: By contributing through their candidate committees and leadership PACs. Already, more than $3 million changed hands this way in the first three months of 2017 — nearly $2.6 million in the House and $769,000 in the Senate.

These are the 2018 candidates who are the top recipients of funds from their colleagues:

All of these candidates in some way have been pinpointed as vulnerable. In the House, all eight of the Republicans listed above are “Round One” targets for the Dems, and are also in the Patriot Program, organized by the National Republican Congressional Committee to support candidates facing particularly challenging elections. The two Democrats have been added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s similar Frontline Program.

Currently the GOP holds the majority in the House by a wide margin — 241 seats to the Democrats’ 194. Thirty-four seats in the Senate will be on the ballot. But the president’s party usually loses seats in Congress in the midterm elections.

To gain a majority in the Senate, the Democrats will have to cling to its 25 seats that are up for re-election and fight for three more. (Two of the 25 are held by Independents who caucus with the Democrats.) Republicans, meanwhile, have their eyes on a 60-seat supermajority so they can block Democratic filibusters (that’s if filibuster rules still exist by 2019). To get there, they would need eight more seats and couldn’t lose any of their nine incumbents up for re-election.

meanwhile...

maine tisch timeline: (color code lost)

2017 (December)

More than 700 employees have left the EPA under the Trump Administration, 200 of

them scientists

Few of those employees have been replaced. The Trump Administration is nearly a quarter of

the way toward its goal of achieving a 20% reduction in the EPA workforce, a cut of 3,200

positions. This is after substantial cuts during the Obama Administration, due to Republican

led budget cuts. During his campaign, President Trump pledged to whittle the EPA down to

“little tidbits.”*

*Lisa Friedman, Marina Affo, and Derek Kravitz, “E.P.A. Officials, Disheartened by Agency’s Direction, Are Leaving in Droves,”

New York Times, December 22, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/climate/epa-buyouts-pruitt.html

2018 (January)

NOAA releases its updated historical table of disasters costing more than $1 billion since

1980, with 2017 a record-breaking year

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information tracks the frequency, severity, and

costs of extreme weather and climate events over the years.* 2017 was the year with the greatest

damages, by far. As summarized by David Leonhardt in his New York Times newsletter, “Major

2018 (February)

High temperatures records are broken in Maine and the Arctic

While recordbreaking February high temperatures are experienced in much of the eastern United

States, including 70 degrees F. in Maine,* temperatures in the Arctic winter soar 45 degrees above

normal. **

*Angela Fritz, “This weird February heat dome on the East Coast could be unprecedented,” Washington Post, February 22, 2018,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/02/21/this-weird-february-heat-dome-on-the-east-coast-couldbe-unprecedented/

**Jason Samenow, “Arctic temperatures soar 45 degrees above normal, flooded by extremely mild air on all sides,” Washington Post,

February 22, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/02/21/arctic-temperatures-soar-45-degreesabove-normal-flooded-by-extremely-mild-air-on-all-sides/

2018 (March)

Study finds first evidence that fresh meltwater from Arctic or Greenland sea ice is slowing

ocean convection currents

A metaphorical “conveyor belt” of ocean currents in the Atlantic bring colder water southward in

the deep Atlantic, circulating warmer water to the north near the surface to warm Europe and

North America. This process has been observed to have slightly slowed down since 2008, but it

was unclear whether that was causally linked to climate change. However, models have

suggested that as freshwater from melting sea ice floods into the North Atlantic, and is more

buoyant than saltwater, its presence could slow the sinking of cooling waters beginning the

southward flow of the circular, or “convection,” currents.* A study reported in Nature Climate

Change by scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Germany,

based on 13 years of data observing ocean currents in the Irminger sea in the far north Atlantic,

finds evidence to suggest those models are on target: “warm and fresh summers, characterized by

increased sea surface temperatures, freshwater concentrations and melting, are accompanied by

weather events caused $306 billion of damage in the United States last year, with floods,

wildfires, tornadoes and, of course, three big hurricanes all contributing to the toll. The previous

record-holder had been 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, when the combined cost was slightly

above $200 billion (inflation adjusted). The only other year with a toll above $100 billion was

2012.” Leonhardt concludes: “it’s time for climate advocates to shed their fear about having

weather be central to their arguments. The changes in weather --- in part because of how

damaging and worrisome they are --- are one of the most effective tools that advocates have.”**

* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Centers for Environmental Information, Billion Dollar Weather and

Climate Disasters Overview, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/overview

**David Leonhardt, Newsletters, The New York Times, January 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/david-leonhardt

reduced heat and buoyancy losses in winter, which entail a longer persistence of the freshwater

near the surface and contribute to delaying convection. By shortening the time span for the

convective freshwater export, the identified seasonal dynamics introduce a potentially critical

threshold that is crossed when substantial amounts of freshwater from one summer are carried

over into the next and accumulate.”**

*Chris Mooney, “The fast-melting Arctic is already messing with the ocean’s circulation, scientists say,” Washington Post, March 14,

2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/14/the-melting-arctic-is-already-messing-with-acrucial-part-of-the-oceans-circulation-scientists-say/

** Marilena Oltmanns, Johannes Karstensen & Jürgen Fischer, “Increased risk of a shutdown of ocean convection

posed by warm North Atlantic summers,” Nature Climate Change 8 (April 2018): 300-304, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-

018-0105-1

2018 (March)

Study finds methane emissions from melting permafrost may play a larger role than

previously thought

Scientists have long been concerned about “positive feedbacks,” where warming conditions in

the Arctic regions cause melting permafrost to release more greenhouse gases. While field studies

have detected significant quantities of the potent greenhouse gas methane from warming

permafrost, lab studies have generally downplayed exposure to methane releases, suggesting less

potent, longer lasting carbon dioxide will be the major feedback contributor, from dryer soils.* A

study conducted at the Institute of Soil Science at the University of Hamburg in Germany

incubated samples of permafrost in the laboratory for seven years, and found that it took more

than three years for microorganisms generating methane to develop stable communities, and start

producing as much methane as carbon dioxide: “These findings challenge the view of a stronger

permafrost carbon-climate feedback from drained soils and emphasize the importance of CH4

[methane] production in thawing permafrost on climate-relevant timescales.”**

*Chris Mooney, “The Arctic’s carbon bomb might be even more potent than we thought,” Washington Post, March 19, 2018,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/19/the-arctics-carbon-bomb-might-be-even-more-potentthan-we-thought/

**Christian Knobauch, et al., “Methane production as key to the greenhouse gas budget of thawing permafrost,”

Nature Climate Change 8 (March 19, 2018): 309-312, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0095-z

2018 (March)

The International Energy Agency reports a 1.4% increase in global carbon dioxide

emissions in 2017, after three years of flat emission levels

Global energy-related CO2 emissions “reach[ed] a historic high of 32.5 gigatonnes (Gt), a

resumption of growth after three years of global emissions remaining flat. The increase in

CO2 emissions, however, was not universal. While most major economies saw a rise, some others

experienced declines, including the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico and Japan. The

biggest decline came from the United States [.5%], mainly because of higher deployment of

renewables.” While global growth in renewables in 2017 was “unprecedented,” it did not make a

dent in fossil fuels’ domination of energy production: “The overall share of fossil fuels in global

energy demand in 2017 remained at 81 percent, a level that has remained stable for more than

three decades despite strong growth in renewables.”*

*Brad Plumer, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rose Last Year. Here Are the Top 5 Reasons,” New York Times, March 22, 2018,

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/climate/global-energy-demand.html; International Energy Agency, Global Energy & CO2 Status

Report 2017 (Paris, France: International Energy Agency, 2017), 1, https://webstore.iea.org/global-energy-co2-status-report-2017

2018 (May)

An analysis by the Grantham Institute finds that the number of laws across the globe

addressing climate change has increased more than 20 fold since the Kyoto Treaty of 1997

The analysis finds 1500 laws and policies related to climate presently, compared with 97 in 1997.

“From 2009 to 2015, the period that included the Copenhagen climate summit and ended in the

Paris Agreement, between 100 and 143 new climate change laws were passed each year. It is

likely that this wave of action not only supported but enabled the Paris Agreement on climate

change.” The authors note that implementing the Paris Agreement requires “a stable, long-term

and overarching approach to climate governance, rooted in law.” 139 countries have adopted

such “framework laws.”*

* Michal Nachmany and Joana Setzer, Global trends in climate change legislation and litigation: 2018 snapshot (London,

U.K.,Grantham Research Institute, May, 2018), http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Global-trendsin-climate-change-legislation-and-litigation-2018-snapshot.pdf

2018 (June)

Pope Francis convenes a Vatican climate change conference, urging top fossil fuel executives

to keep most fossil fuels underground

At a meeting attended by top executives of oil and gas corporations including Exxon Mobil and

BP, as well as investors, Pope Francis warns that “civilization requires energy, but energy use

must not destroy civilization.” Failure curb use of fossil fuels will lead to a “spiral of extreme

climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and

increased levels of poverty.” He commends companies for accounting for “assessment of climate

risk” in their businesses, but warns that “markets and technology” alone will not stop climate

change, since our “current economic system thrives on ever-increasing extraction, consumption,

and waste.” *

*Bradley Olson and Francis X. Rocca, “Pope Francis Criticizes Continued Search for Fossil Fuels at Meeting with Oil Executives,”

Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-criticizes-continued-search-for-fossil-fuels-at-meetingwith-oil-executives-1528547509; Pope Francis, ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO PARTICIPANTS AT THE

MEETING FOR EXECUTIVES OF THE MAIN COMPANIES IN THE OIL AND NATURAL GAS SECTORS, AND OTHER

ENERGY RELATED BUSINESSES, The Vatican, June 9, 2018,

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2018/june/documents/papa-francesco_20180609_imprenditori-energia.html

2018 (June)

The rate of melting of the Antarctic ice sheet has tripled in the last ten years

A study report by a team of 80 Antarctic experts known formally as the Ice Sheet Mass Balance

Inter-Comparison Exercise, publishing in the Journal Nature, begins with the sobering

observation that “The ice sheets of Antarctica hold enough water to raise global sea level by

58m.” As summarized by Chris Mooney in the Washington Post, “Antarctica, the planet’s largest

ice sheet, lost 219 billion tons of ice annually from 2012 through 2017 — approximately triple

the 73 billion-ton melt rate of a decade ago, the scientists concluded. From 1992 through 1997,

Antarctica lost 49 billion tons of ice annually.” Mooney points out that the “controversial study”

by James Hansen and his team of climate scientists in 2016 (see 2016(March)) estimated that if

the rate of polar ice-sheet melt doubled every decade, sea levels could rise above one meter within

50 years. “A tripling every decade, were it to continue, would reach that volume of sea level rise

even sooner. There is no proof the current rate of change in Antarctica will continue. Scientists

can’t see the future, but they do fear continuing and even worsening losses.”*

*Chris Mooney, “Antarctic ice loss has tripled in a decade. If that continues, we are in serious trouble.” Washington Post, June 13, 2018,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/06/13/antarctic-ice-loss-has-tripled-in-a-decade-if-thatcontinues-we-are-in-serious-trouble/;

Andrew Shepherd et al. (IMBIE team), “Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017,” Nature 558 (2018):219-202,

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0179-y

2018 (June)

Study finds leakage of methane from U.S. oil and gas production is 60% more than EPA

estimates

In a five-year study by scientists with the Environmental Defense Fund and a team of “140

research and industry experts from 40 institutions and 50 companies”* published in Science,

researchers find that methane leakage has been significantly underreported, raising questions

about the accuracy of greenhouse gas inventories, and pointing to the need to substantially ramp

up leak detection and prevention. As detailed in the abstract: “Methane emissions from the U.S.

oil and natural gas supply chain were estimated by using ground-based, facility-scale

measurements and validated with aircraft observations in areas accounting for ~30% of U.S. gas

production. When scaled up nationally, our facility-based estimate of 2015 supply chain

emissions is 13 ± 2 teragrams per year, equivalent to 2.3% of gross U.S. gas production. This

value is ~60% higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inventory estimate, likely

because existing inventory methods miss emissions released during abnormal operating

conditions. Methane emissions of this magnitude, per unit of natural gas consumed, produce

radiative forcing over a 20-year time horizon comparable to the CO2 from natural gas combustion.

Substantial emission reductions are feasible through rapid detection of the root causes of high

emissions and deployment of less failure-prone systems.”** E&E News reports Jeff Peischl, a

scientist from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, as describing

the climate impact of the oil and gas industry's methane leaks as "roughly the climate impact of

carbon dioxide emissions from all U.S. coal-fired power plants" operating in the United States in

Steven Hamburg, EDF's chief scientist who led the investigation, says the leakage amounts

to a "huge problem, but also an enormous opportunity." Reducing the industry's methane leaks

would be "the fastest, most cost-effective way we have to slow the rate of warming today."***

*Environmental Defense Fund, “Major studies reveal 60 percent more methane emissions,” https://www.edf.org/climate/methanestudies

**Ramon Alvarez et al., “Assessment of methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain,” Science 361, no. 6398 (June 13,

2018): 186-188, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/186

***John Fialka, “More gas is leaking than previously estimated — study,” E&E News, June 22, 2018,

https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060086093/

2018 (July)

Summer heat records broken across the world

Numerous locations across the planet set all time heat records during one week in July. Most

notable is in Siberia: “In Northern Siberia, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean – where weather

observations are scarce – model analyses showed temperatures soaring 40 degrees above normal

on July 5, to over 90 degrees. ‘It is absolutely incredible and really one of the most intense heat

events I’ve ever seen for so far north,’ wrote meteorologist Nick Humphrey, who offers more

detail on this extraordinary high-latitude hot spell on his blog.”* And on August 8, “Sea surface

temperatures in the vast Gulf of Maine hit a near-record high of 68.93 degrees Fahrenheit on Aug.

8, part of what scientists called a month-long ‘marine heat wave’”**

*Jason Samenow, “Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week,” Washington Post,

July 5, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/07/03/hot-planet-all-time-heat-records-havebeen-set-all-over-the-world-in-last-week/

**Steven Mufson, “An ocean ‘heat wave’ just drove temperatures off Maine to near-record highs,” Washington Post, August 31,

2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/an-ocean-heat-wave-just-drove-temperatures-off-maine-to-nearrecord-highs/2018/08/31/3db85126-ad2d-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html

2018 (August)

Study estimates global mortality toll of rising temperatures in 2099 will exceed current

global toll of traffic accidents

A study by the Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago is the first global examination

of both costs and benefits of rising temperatures alone on human mortality. It considers both

lives lost to extreme heat, and lives saved from less extreme cold. The study concludes that by

2099, 1.5 million more people will die each year from increased heat, compared with current

estimates that 1.25 million died in all traffic accidents in 2013.* Writes Greg Ip in The Wall

Street Journal: “the study concludes the heat-related costs incurred by one additional metric ton

of carbon dioxide is $39, far larger than existing estimates of around $1.50…It also suggests that

an even bigger carbon tax is justified than the $24-a-metric ton that Republic Congressman Carlos

Curbelo of Florida recently proposed.”**

* Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, “New Global Mortality Study Estimates Climate Damages,” August 1, 2018,

https://epic.uchicago.edu/news-events/news/new-global-mortality-study-estimates-climate-damages; Tamma Carleton et al., Valuing

the Global Mortality Consequences of Climate Change Accounting for Adaptation Costs and Benefits (Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, August 1, 2018), http://www.impactlab.org/wpcontent/uploads/2018/08/CIL_mortality_SSRN.pdf

** Greg Ip, “The Mortality Toll of Rising Temperatures,” Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/addingup-the-cost-of-climate-change-in-lost-lives-1533121201

2018 (August)

The Trump Administration issues notice of proposed rule rolling back Obama era

greenhouse gas and fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles

The joint notice of the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration announced August 1 solicits public comment and proposes a “preferred

alternative” of freezing fuel efficiency and emissions standards at 2020 levels through 2026,

instead of ratcheting up standards every year as envisioned by the Obama regulations [see 2012

(August)]. The agencies claim that the ‘‘Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule,”

would “save over 500 billion dollars in societal costs and reduce highway fatalities by 12,700

lives (over the lifetimes of vehicles through MY 2029). U.S. fuel consumption would increase by

about half a million barrels per day (2–3 percent of total daily consumption, according to the

Energy Information Administration) and would impact the global climate by 3/1000th of one

degree Celsius by 2100, also when compared to the standards set forth in 2012.” The agencies

contend their revisions are driven by consumer demand and safety concerns. Due in part to lower

gasoline prices, consumers are “demonstrating a preference for more powerful engines and

vehicles with higher seating positions and ride height …all of which present challenges for

achieving increased fuel economy levels and lower CO2 emission rates.” And “unreasonable fuel

economy and CO2 standards” cause “increased vehicle prices [which] keep consumers in older,

dirtier, and less safe vehicles.” They also proposed revoking California’s ability to set stricter

emissions standards. *

Coming at a time when U.S. motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions have

recently outpaced emissions from electricity generation, this move is predicted to be the

administration’s “biggest step backwards on greenhouse gas.” E&E News quotes Danny

Cullenward, a research associate at the think tank Near Zero, as noting that “the scale of

transportation sector emissions and the lack of other successful drivers in reducing GHG

emissions in this sector make the impact of any rollback in state and/or federal standards

extremely potent." E&E News cites an analysis by the Rhodium Group concluding that “the

cumulative increases of carbon dioxide between 2022 and 2035 could surpass the total annual

emissions of 82 percent of countries today — just from freezing the car rules.”** Internal EPA

documents suggest that the EPA questioned the safety justifications for the proposed rule, finding

that the freeze would in fact lead to 17 more fatalities on the roads annually, and that it would

lead to loss of 35,000 jobs per year.*** Climate scientists are startled at how the administration

sought to minimize the relative impact of these rules on warming, by envisioning, under a worst

case scenario without any emissions controls, that the planet would have a carbon dioxide

concentration of 789.76 ppm, nearly double current levels. As noted by E&E News, “The last

time carbon dioxide levels hit the mark the Trump administration envisions for the end of the

century, crocodiles roamed the poles and palm trees existed where glaciers are today. In fact,

there were no glaciers — not even in Antarctica.”**** California and 16 other states, including

Maine, file a preemptive suit in May contending that the rollback violates the Clean Air Act. Says

Governor Jerry Brown, “States representing 140 million Americans are getting together to sue

Outlaw Pruitt — not Administrator Pruitt, but Outlaw Pruitt.”***** The editorial board of the

Wall Street Journal applauds “Trump’s Car Freedom Act:” “The Trump Administration’s

deregulation is improving consumer choice and reducing costs from health care to appliances. Its

proposed revisions Thursday to fuel economy rules continue this trend to the benefit of car buyers,

not that you’d know it from the political hyperventilation.” ****** [see 2019 (June – November)]

* Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “The Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE)

Vehicles Rule for Model Years 2021–2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks,” Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Federal Register 83

(August 24, 2018): 42986-43500, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-08-24/pdf/2018-16820.pdf

**Zack Colman, “Trump makes his biggest move on climate with car rules,” E&E News, August 3, 2018,

https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/08/03/stories/1060092681

***Zack Colman and Maxine Joselow, “EPA argued rollback could mean more deaths – documents,” E&E News, August 15, 2018,

https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/08/15/stories/1060094161

**** Zack Colman and Scott Waldman, “Trump admin sees grim climate outcome in car rule,” E&E News, August 7, 2018,

https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/08/07/stories/1060092895

*****Hiroko Tabuchi and Coral Davenport, “California Sues Trump Administration Over Car Emission Rules,” New York Times,

May 1, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/climate/california-sues-trumpadministration.html?emc=edit_na_20180501&nl=breaking-news&nlid=37873277ing-news&ref=cta

******Editorial Board, “Trump’s Car Freedom Act,” Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-carfreedom-act-1533337130

2018 (August)

The Trump Administration issues notice of proposed rule replacing Obama era regulations

on greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants

The proposed rule published by the EPA on August 31, dubbed the “Affordable Clean Energy

Rule (ACE),” differs fundamentally from the Obama Clean Power Plan (CPP) [see 2015

(August)] by eliminating a federally mandated cap on greenhouse gas emissions from power

plants. And while states choosing to enforce emissions reductions could under the CPP employ

energy efficiency and renewables as part of their emissions strategy, the Trump plan limits their

options to improvements in coal plant efficiency.* An analysis by Resources for the Future

estimates that carbon dioxide emissions under ACE would be 63 percent higher than under the

CPP, and that emissions under ACE would only be 2.6 percent lower than if EPA did nothing.**

As the New York Times observed, “the administration’s own analysis… revealed on Tuesday that

the new rules could also lead to as many as 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 from an

increase in the extremely fine particulate matter that is linked to heart and lung disease, up to

15,000 new cases of upper respiratory problems, a rise in bronchitis, and tens of thousands of

missed school days.”

By contrast, the CPP by the Obama EPA’s projections could have prevented

between 1,500 and 3,600 premature deaths per year by 2030, and would reduce the number of

school days missed by 180,000 annually.*** Comments submitted by the Attorney Generals of

18 states, including Maine, declare that “the ‘Affordable Clean Energy’ rule neither promotes

‘clean energy’ generation nor does it implement a policy that Americans can ‘afford’ given the

need to aggressively cut carbon pollution from power plants and other sources to adequately

confront the dangers of climate change… At its core, rule represents a fundamental abdication of

EPA’s critical role in curbing greenhouse gas pollution…”**** The editorial board of the Wall

Street Journal counters that the proposed rule is “Not the Climate Apocalypse:” “Of the Obama

Administration’s many power grabs, none was more audacious than its bid to regulate coal-fired

electric power out of business. The Trump Administration is now proposing to rewrite the rule

in a way that honors the law and still reduces carbon emissions, yet it is being portrayed as

radical.”***** [see 2019 (June)]

*Environmental Protection Agency, “Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Electric Utility Generating

Units; Revisions to Emission Guideline Implementing Regulations; Revisions to New Source Review Program,” 83 Federal Register

44,746 - 44813 (Aug. 31, 2018), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-08-31/pdf/2018-18755.pdf

**Amelia Keyes et al. “Carbon Standards Examined: A Comparison of At-the-Source and Beyond-the-Source Power Plant Carbon

Standards” (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, August 21, 2018), https://www.rff.org/publications/working-papers/carbonstandards-examined-a-comparison-of-at-the-source-and-beyond-the-source-power-plant-carbon-standards/

***Lisa Friedman, “Cost of New E.P.A. Coal Rules: Up to 1,400 More Deaths a Year,” New York Times, August 21, 2018,

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/climate/epa-coal-pollution-deaths.html

****The Attorney General of New York et al., “Comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Proposed Emission Guidelines

for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Electric Utility Generating Units,” 83 Fed. Reg. 44746 (October 31, 2018),

https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/11/01/October%20comments%20opposing%20proposal%20to%20replace%20Clean%20

Power%20Plan_0.pdf

*****Editorial Board, “Not the Climate Apocalypse,” Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/not-theclimate-apocalypse-1534894336

2018 (August)

Scientists predict dramatic changes to land-based ecosystems in the 21st century and

beyond if emissions are not reined in

A team of scientists publishing in Science led by Stephen Jackson, director of the U.S. Geological

Survey’s Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, studied the ecological record, including

pollen fragments and fossils from 594 sites around the world from the interglacial time 16,000 to

10,000 years ago, in an effort to predict what a future planet would look like if it reached 4 to 7o

C. The report concludes: “terrestrial vegetation over the entire planet is at substantial risk of major

compositional and structural changes in the absence of markedly reduced GHG emissions. Much

of this change could occur during the 21st century, especially where vegetation disturbance is

accelerated or amplified by human impacts. Many emerging ecosystems will be novel in

composition, structure, and function, and many will be ephemeral under sustained climate

change; equilibrium states may not be attained until the 22nd century or beyond.”* Comments

Jackson in The Washington Post: “It is concerning to me to think about how much change and

how rapidly the change is likely to happen, and how little capacity we have to predict the exact

course…which creates very large challenges for all of us out there who are trying to manage

wildfire, fish, water, soil, endangered species — all those different ways in which natural

ecosystems affect us.”**

*Connor Nolan et al., “Past and future global transformation of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change,” Science 361, no. 6405

(August 31, 2018): 920-923, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6405/920

**Sarah Kaplan, “Climate change could render many of Earth’s ecosystems unrecognizable,” Washington Post, August 30, 2018,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/08/30/climate-change-could-render-many-earths-ecosystems-unrecognizable/

2018 (September)

The Trump Administration issues a final rule repealing the Obama Administration’s 2016

Methane Waste Prevention Rule

The Obama rule would have set new technical standards for cutting flaring of gas in oil production

in half, inspecting for gas leaks, and limiting venting from storage tanks; it was intended to curb

fugitive methane leak contributions to global warming, and recapture lost federal royalty

payments on wasted methane gas production. [see 2016 (November), 2017 (May)] Amid a host

of regulatory and litigation challenges* the Trump Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finally

repeals the rule opposed by the oil and gas industry. BLM’s cost-benefit analysis of the repeal

drastically cut the estimate of climate costs from methane leakage. As E&E News reports: “BLM

estimates the revised rule could result in close to $1 billion in net gains over 10 years. Those

benefits were tied to expected savings for oil and gas firms, which would no longer have to pay

to comply with the Obama rule. The Trump administration's proposed rule anticipated a loss of

at least $26.4 million in royalty payments, which benefit taxpayers.

The draft revision rule applied

a severe discount to the climate impact of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Obama's BLM

estimated its rule would have a minimum annual net benefit of $46 million once oil and gas

operators were forced to internalize the costs of emitting methane into the atmosphere.”** In an

opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein

critiques the Trump administration’s cost-benefit analysis premised on a much lower “social cost

of carbon”: “It’s perfectly legitimate for the administration to reassess the numbers used by its

predecessor. But the Trump administration’s math suffers from two flaws. It does not take account

of the latest science and economics, which support a higher number, and its approach considers

only the damage that U.S. emissions do domestically, ignoring the damage that such emissions

do to people in other countries. If every nation did that, Americans themselves would be big

losers.”***

*Hana Vizcarra, BLM Methane Waste Prevention Rule, Harvard Environment & Energy Law Program Regulatory Rollback Tracker,

https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2017/09/bam-methane-waste-prevention-rule/

**Pamela King, “BLM to lock in methane rule revision,” E&E News, September 18, 2018,

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060098233; Bureau of Land Management, “Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and

Resource Conservation; Rescission or Revision of Certain Requirements,” Final Rule, 83 Federal Register 49184 (September 28,

2018), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/09/28/2018-20689/waste-prevention-production-subject-to-royalties-andresource-conservation-rescission-or-revision-of

***Cass Sunstein, “A Quiet Revolution Has Given the U.S. Smarter Regulations,” Wall Street Journal, October 21, 2018,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-quiet-revolution-has-given-the-u-s-smarter-regulations-1540148307

2018 (October)

The IPCC releases a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5o

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, requested by the UNFCCC following

the 2015 Paris Conference, seeks to assess what a 1.5°C warmer world would look like and the

different pathways by which global temperature rise could be limited to 1.5°C.* The report

affirms the view advocated by many at the Paris Conference, that the original 2o C limit of the

long term global goal should be rethought and is not a “‘guardrail’ up to which all would be safe.”

It warns that if the current warming rate continues, the world would reach human-induced global

warming of 1.5°C around 2040, and that over a fifth of the global population live in regions that

have already experienced warming in at least one season that is greater than 1.5°C above

preindustrial levels. It projects that reaching this milestone as a global average would result in

“warming of extreme temperatures in many regions ….increases in frequency, intensity, and/or

amount of heavy precipitation in several regions…. and an increase in intensity or frequency of

droughts in some regions.” “Global warming of 1.5°C is projected to shift the ranges of many

marine species to higher latitudes as well as increase the amount of damage to many ecosystems.

It is also expected to drive the loss of coastal resources and reduce the productivity of fisheries

and aquaculture (especially at low latitudes). …Coral reefs…are projected to decline by a further

70–90% at 1.5°C…”**

As summarized in the IPCC’s press release, “limiting global warming to

1.5°C would require ‘rapid and far-reaching’ transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings,

transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to

fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This means

that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air. ‘Limiting

warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require

unprecedented changes,’ said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III.” Gareth Dale,

writing in the journal The Ecologist, criticizes the IPCC for being too conservative, both in its

economic models and its approach to tipping points: “the IPCC continues to underplay the risk

of catastrophic nonlinearities, … which, via cascading climate tipping points, could before long

propel runaway warming.”*** Elizabeth Kolbert, writing in The New Yorker, comments that

“Perhaps the most important takeaway from the report is that every extra half a degree is worldaltering.”****

In response to renewed Trump Administration denials in response to the report,

Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times: “I’d say it was a shocking spectacle, except that it’s

hard to get shocked these days. But it was a reminder that we’re now ruled by people who are

willing to endanger civilization for the sake of political expediency, not to mention increased

profits for their fossil-fuel friends.”***** The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal

responds: “Have we reached peak alarmism on climate change? The question occurs after the

muted reaction last week to the latest forecast from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change. In case you hadn’t heard we’re all doomed, yet the world mostly yawned.

This is less complacency than creeping scientific and political realism.”****** The following

December, at the UNFCCC COP24 meeting in Poland, the United States joins with Saudi Arabia,

Russia, and Kuwait in an unprecedented refusal to “welcome” the IPCC report, leaving its status

in limbo. Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists,

comments that the U.S. position is "deeply irresponsible and must not prevail.” "I don't blame the

professional US diplomats here in Poland," Meyer said. "The problem is right at the top - with

President Trump."*******[see 2018 (December)]

* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, , “Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C

approved by governments,” October 8, 2018, https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-onglobal-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/

**Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global Warming of 1.5o C, Summary for Policy Makers, and Frequently Asked

Questions, October, 2018, https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

***Gareth Dale, “The Nobel Prize in climate chaos,” The Ecologist, October 12, 2018, https://theecologist.org/2018/oct/12/nobelprize-climate-chaos-romer-nordhaus-and-ipcc

****Elizabeth Kolbert, “Global Warning,” New Yorker, October 22, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/whatis-donald-trumps-response-to-the-uns-dire-climate-report

*****Paul Krugman, “Donald and the Deadly Deniers,” New York Times, October 15, 2018,

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/opinion/trump-climate-change-deniers-republican.html

******Editorial Board, “The U.N.’s Doomsday Climate Clock,” Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2018,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-n-s-doomsday-climate-clock-1539645402

******* “Saudi, US snub of climate report unsettles UN talks,” Straits Times, December 11, 2018,

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/saudi-us-snub-of-climate-report-unsettles-un-talks

2018 (October)

Carbon removal and sequester focus of major National Academies report

In the face of dismantling federal policies to cut back greenhouse gas emissions, the National

Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine issues a report proposing a major research

agenda to develop “Negative Emissions Technologies” (NETs) that remove and sequester carbon

from the air. Headed by Princeton climate scientist Stephen Pacala [see 2004 (August)], the

authors acknowledge that “to meet the climate goals laid out under the Paris Agreement, humanity

may have to start removing around 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year by

midcentury, in addition to reducing industrial emissions… That’s nearly as much carbon as all

the world’s forests and soils currently absorb each year.”* The report concludes that “recent

analyses of economically optimal solutions to the climate problem have concluded that NETs will

play as significant a role as any mitigation technology available… Nonetheless, existing options

(coastal blue carbon, afforestation/reforestation, forest management, agricultural soils and

[bioenergy with carbon capture and storage]) cannot yet provide enough negative emissions at

reasonable cost, without substantial unintended harm. A substantial research investment is needed

to improve existing NETs and to reduce their negative impacts and costs. In addition, direct air

capture and carbon mineralization have essentially unlimited capacity and are almost

unexplored.” Aside from the necessity of developing these technologies to meet the goals of the

Paris Agreement, and acknowledging that the authors are “acutely aware” of the Trump

Administration’s plan to withdraw from the Agreement, the report argues that “intellectual

property and economic benefits will likely accrue to the nations that develop the best

technology.”**

*Brad Plumer, “Scientists Push for a Crash Program to Scrub Carbon From the Air,” New York Times, October 24, 2081,

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/global-warming-carbon-removal.html

** National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A

Research Agenda (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press 2018),

https://www.nap.edu/resource/25259/Negative%20Emissions%20Technologies.pdf

2018 (October)

The Supreme Court declines to review a ruling striking down Obama era regulation of

potent greenhouse gases hydrofluorocarbons

In 2017, the D.C. Court of Appeals, in a decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, struck down

President Obama’s 2015 regulation phasing out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in

refrigeration on the theory that it exceeded the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act. HFCs

were adopted as substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons, which damage the ozone layer, but turned

out to be highly potent greenhouse gases [see 2013 (June)]. The Trump administration had

defended the Obama regulations in the Court of Appeals, but then requested that the Supreme

Court not review the decision, as it was considering an alternative approach to regulating HFCs.

The Supreme Court’s decision not to review means that HFCs remain unregulated pending further

Trump administration action.*

*Miranda Green, “Supreme Court declines to hear appeal in greenhouse gas case ruled on by Kavanaugh,” The Hill, October 9, 2018,

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/410590-scotus-wont-hear-appeal-of-greenhouse-gas-case-ruled-on-by

See also: Amanda Reilly, “U.S. court rejects Obama-era plan to eliminate some potent planet warming chemicals,” Science, August 8,

2017, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/us-court-rejects-obama-era-plan-eliminate-some-potent-planet-warming-chemicals

2018 (October)

The Trump Administration announces first approval of oil and gas drilling in federal waters

off Alaska

In a “major victory for the oil industry and a blow to conservation groups that fought it, fearing a

possible leak in a sensitive and pristine natural environment,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke

announces that Hilcorp Energy, based in Houston, will build a nine-acre gravel island about 20

miles east of Prudhoe Bay, not far from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, proposing to tap

into a reservoir of oil on Alaska’s North Slope, containing as much as 150 million barrels.* A

coalition of environmental groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity sue in December to

stop the project. The Center’s oceans legal director Kristen Monsell states that the project “ is

the bad step down a very dangerous path. An oil spill in the Arctic would be impossible to clean

up in a region already stressed by climate change.”**

*Darryl Fears, “The Trump administration just approved a plan to drill for oil in Alaska’s federal waters. It’s a major first.” Washington

Post, October 24, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/24/trump-administration-just-approved-plandrill-oil-alaskas-federal-waters-its-major-first/

**Center for Biological Diversity, “Lawsuit Challenges Trump Approval of Offshore Oil Drilling Project in the Arctic,” December

17, 2018, https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/liberty-project-12-17-2018.php

2018 (October)

Exxon Mobil announces commitment of $1 million to promote a carbon tax

The Wall Street Journal reports that the company, “once a powerful skeptic of global warming,

will now be among the first oil companies to put money into the fight to make climate change a

political priority in Washington. The U.S.’s largest energy producer will commit $1 million

over two years to promote a national tax on carbon as a way to address the environmental issue.

The funding will back an initiative designed to appeal to the Republicans who now control

Washington, and may open the door for Exxon’s peers in the oil industry to follow.”*

*Timothy Puko and Bradley Olson, “Exxon Puts Up $1 Million to Promote Carbon Tax,” Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2018,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-puts-up-1-million-to-campaign-for-a-carbon-tax-1539079200

2018 (October)

New York sues Exxon Mobil on accounting for climate change

New York Acting Attorney General Barbara Underwood concludes a three year investigation

into Exxon’s accounting practices related to climate change by filing a civil suit alleging that

the company engaged in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to deceive investors, analysts and

underwriters “concerning the company’s management of the risks posed to its business by

climate change regulation.” The New York Times observes that “not only does [the suit] pose a

financial threat to Exxon that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars or more, but it

could also strike a blow to the reputation of a company that has worked to rehabilitate its image,

framing itself as a leader on global warming.” Exxon Mobil spokesman Scott Silvestri, says that

the New York attorney general’s “baseless allegations are a product of closed-door lobbying by

special interests, political opportunism and the attorney general’s inability to admit that a three-year

investigation has uncovered no wrongdoing.”*The Editorial Board of the Wall Street

Journal issues a strongly worded criticism: “Ms. Underwood is charging Exxon under New

York’s notorious Martin Act, which doesn’t require evidence of intent to prove fraud in civil

cases. She may be hoping that Exxon agrees to settle and pay a fine so she can declare victory.

Yet in this case there’s not even evidence of fraudulent conduct, much less intent. The only

party guilty of misrepresentation in this lawsuit is the New York AG.”** [see 2015

(November), 2016 (October)]

*John Schwartz, “New York Sues Exxon Mobil, Saying It Deceived Shareholders on Climate Change,” New York Times, October 24,

2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/exxon-lawsuit-climate-change.html

**Editorial Board, “Peak Embarrassment in War on Oil,” Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/peakembarrassment-in-war-on-oil-1540509533

2018 (November)

The University of Maine Climate Change Institute releases the report “Coastal Maine

Climate Futures”

The report assesses the impact of climate change on the Maine coast and its natural resource

based enterprises in the recent past, and projects various scenarios for the future.* The report

notes that warming of the Gulf of Maine presents obstacles to the recovery of the cod ground

fishery, decimated due to overfishing, but has in the short term contributed to expanding

populations of lobster, which may continue up to a point: “Lobster abundance in Maine has

meanwhile increased four-fold since the late 1980s due to both the decline of cod (predators of

juvenile lobsters) and warming waters that are favorable to the species at least to a threshold. As

found during summer in coastal waters off southern New England, lobster mortality increases

significantly if [sea surface temperatures] exceed ~68°F.” For coastal agriculture, warming

since 2000 has brought a longer growing season of about two weeks over the 20th century

average, but “potential benefits from this longer growing season… are balanced by a number of

negative impacts of the changing weather, including the northward migration

of pests, extreme rainfall events…, sedimentation in associated surface waters from the

accelerated soil loss, as well as more frequent ‘blocking’ patterns in the atmosphere that

increase the likelihood of heatwaves and seasonal drought.” Comparing blueberry yield data

with sea surface temperatures and mean sea level pressure (tied to precipitation), the authors

found positive correlations between higher crop yields, and warmer, wetter summers:

“commodity measures such as production and area yield are influenced by weather,

and the implications of a changing climate are extremely important to consider.” **

*Sean Birkel and Paul Mayewski, Coastal Maine Climate Futures (Orono, ME: Climate Change

Institute, University of Maine, 2-18). https://climatechange.umaine.edu/2018/11/08/coastal-maine-climate-futures-s-birkel/

**Editor’s note: while outside the scope of the Birkel and Mayewski report, it is worth considering as well the negative economic

impact on the Maine blueberry crop of expanded competition from the Canadian provinces to the north, due to more favorable conditions

linked with the same warming trends identified in the report for Maine. Beth Daley, “Climate change brings blueberries – and

competition,” New York Times, October 2, 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/world/americas/02iht-berries.1.7713299.html;

Joyce Kryszak, “Blueberry Blues,” DownEast, July 27, 2018, https://downeast.com/blueberry-blues/

2018 (November)

The Trump administration issues Volume II of the National Climate Assessment,

dramatically challenging its own climate policies

The Global Change Research Act of 1990 mandates that U.S. federal agencies produce a report

every four years assessing climate change science and impacts for the United States. Volume II

of the Fourth National Climate Assessment [see Vol. I, 2017 (November] strongly affirms both

the integrity of climate science and the seriousness of consequences of inaction. As characterized

in The Washington Post, “while it avoids policy recommendations, the report’s sense of urgency

and alarm stands in stark contrast to the lack of any apparent plan from President Trump to tackle

the problems, which, according to the government he runs, are increasingly dire.”* Highlights

from the Report’s Summary Findings: “rising temperatures, sea level rise, and changes in extreme

events are expected to increasingly disrupt and damage critical infrastructure and property, labor

productivity, and the vitality of our communities;” “Changes in temperature and precipitation are

increasing air quality and health risks from wildfire and ground-level ozone pollution. Rising air

and water temperatures and more intense extreme events are expected to increase exposure to

waterborne and foodborne diseases, affecting food and water safety. … Climate change is also

projected to alter the geographic range and distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests,

exposing more people to ticks that carry Lyme disease and mosquitoes that transmit viruses such

as Zika, West Nile, and dengue…;” “continued warming that is projected to occur without

substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions is expected to cause

substantial net damage to the U.S. economy throughout this century, especially in the absence of

increased adaptation efforts. With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses

in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the

century—more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many U.S. states.”** Although

the administration releases the report on “Black Friday,” one of the slowest news days of the

year, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirms that

“This report has not been altered or revised in any way because of political considerations.” *

Holman Jenkins, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the media has generally ignored

the good news in the report: “The clear lesson of last week’s U.S. government report and every

other official assessment is that climate change is not the end of the world. We can handle the

cost and we can also handle the cost of avoiding a portion of climate change through sensible tax

policy. (It should not be necessary at this point to rehearse the case for a carbon tax that is

simultaneously pro-growth and anti-carbon.).”***

*Brady Dennis and Chris Moody, “Major Trump administration climate report says damage is ‘intensifying across the country’,”

Washington Post, November 23, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/11/23/major-trump-administrationclimate-report-says-damages-are-intensifying-across-country/?utm_term=.dfccbeb327fe

**U.S. Global Change Research Program, Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the

United States, Summary Findings, 2018; https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/

***Holman Jenkins, “Press is the Enemy of Climate,” Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/press-isthe-enemy-of-climate-1543966906

2018 (November)

Replanting trees and better management of forests and farmland soils in the U.S. could save

as much as 21% of current U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, study finds.

A study team of 26 scientists led by three scientists from The Nature Conservancy quantified the

potential of “natural climate solutions:” conservation, restoration, and improved land

management interventions on natural and agricultural lands—to increase carbon storage and

avoid greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Their report, published in Science

Advances, concluded that techniques such as broader use of cover crops, restricting suburban

sprawl, and reforesting unused land across the nation “are the most mature approaches available

for carbon conservation and uptake compared to nascent carbon capture technologies and could

complement increases in zero-carbon energy production and energy efficiency to achieve needed

climate change mitigation.” Modeling a combination twenty-one different natural climate

solution scenarios, the report found that by the year 2025 up to 21% of 2016 U.S. emissions could

be avoided, the bulk of which would come from carbon sequestration by trees. These techniques

also would have substantial additional benefits for air and water quality, aesthetics, biodiversity,

and soil enrichment.* California has joined 15 other states to explore how better land

management can help mitigate climate change. As Claire Jahns, assistant secretary for climate

issues at the California Natural Resources Agency, tells The New York Times, “I’d say we’re still

learning, but there’s a growing recognition that we’re not going to hit our state climate targets

without paying attention to our lands and the physical environment.”**

*Joseph Fargione et al., “Natural climate solutions for the United States,” Science Advances 4, no. 11 (November 14, 2018):eaat1869,

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/11/eaat1869/tab-figures-data

**Brad Plumer, “Part of the Answer to Climate Change May Be America’s Trees and Dirt, Scientists Say,” New York Times,

November 14, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/climate/climate-change-natural-solutions.html

2018 (November)

Study published in Science finds warming Atlantic sea surface temperatures a major factor

in generating the extraordinary 2017 hurricane season

The 2017 hurricane season in the North Atlantic was highly active, with six major hurricanes

including Harvey, Irma and Maria, causing widespread damage over the Gulf Coast and the

Caribbean. Equating climate change with hurricane activity remains a controversial subject, but

a study published in Science by National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration scientist

Hiroyuki Murakami and coauthors strengthened the argument for this connection: “Using a suite

of high-resolution model experiments, we show that the increase in 2017 major hurricanes was

not primarily caused by La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean but rather triggered mainly by

pronounced warm sea surface conditions in the tropical North Atlantic. Further, we superimpose

a similar pattern of North Atlantic surface warming on data for long-term increasing sea surface

temperature (a product of increases in greenhouse gas concentrations and decreases in aerosols)

to show that this warming trend will likely lead to even higher numbers of major hurricanes in

the future.”*

*Hiroyuki Murakami et al., “Dominant effect of relative tropical Atlantic warming on major hurricane occurrence,” Science 362, no.

6416 (November 16, 2018): 794-799, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6416/794

2018 (November)

Spurred by French President Macron’s planned fuel tax hike, tens of thousands of

protesters wearing yellow high-visibility vests take to the streets with violent protests

After weeks of repeated protests across the nation, Macron is forced to repeal the 20% tax, part

of his plan to “Make the Planet Great Again.” Protests continue with other demands for social

and economic equality. Al Jazeera commentator Rokhaya Diallo argues that the French protest

movement, “one of the most significant social mobilisations in its recent history, … bare the

country's social ills, anti-elite sentiment, growing inequalities and thirst for social justice,” and

“is not a rejection of green policies. It's a revolt against the 1 percent.”* George Melloan argues

in the Wall Street Journal that the rioting Yellow Jackets “are right about green policies: They

have distinguished company in questioning the science behind climate-change dogma.” Melloan

cites the November rejection of ballot measures in Washington and Arizona aimed at reducing

carbon emissions: “Seek out the most basic cause of the French riots and you’ll come to a bizarre

answer: carbon dioxide. More specifically, the demonization by political activists of that vital

element of the earth’s atmosphere…. Mr. Macron has learned the hard way that voters don’t see

climate change as a threat demanding personal sacrifices.” **

*Rokhaya Diallo, “Why are the 'yellow vests' protesting in France?” Al Jazeera, December 10, 2018,

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/yellow-vests-protesting-france-181206083636240.html

**George Melloan, “The Yellow Jackets Are Right About Green Policies,” Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2018,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-yellow-jackets-are-right-about-green-policies-11544991717

2018 (November)

The World Meteorological Organization reports that carbon dioxide levels reached a new

record high global average of 405.5 ppm in 2017

Since 1990, there has been a 41 percent increase in warming driven by greenhouse gases. WMO

Secretary-General Petteri Taalas notes that “The last time the Earth experienced a comparable

concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3°C warmer and

sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now… The science is clear. Without rapid cuts in CO2 and

other greenhouse gases, climate change will have increasingly destructive and irreversible

impacts on life on Earth. The window of opportunity for action is almost closed.”* Bloomberg

news notes that a sea level rise of 10 meters higher “would wipe out low-lying island nations and

much of Manhattan.” **

* World Meteorological Organization, “Greenhouse gas levels in atmosphere reach new record,” November 20, 2018,

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/greenhouse-gas-levels-atmosphere-reach-new-record

**Rachel Morison, “Greenhouse gases hit level last seen when seas covered Manhattan,” Bloomberg, November 22, 2018,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-22/climate-changing-greenhouse-gas-levels-climb-to-record-high

2018 (December)

Royal Dutch Shell announces plan to link executive pay to achieving short term carbon

reduction goals

After intense shareholder pressure, the company agrees to provide three- to five-year targets

beginning in 2020 to reduce its net carbon footprint on an annual basis, and incorporate the targets

into a revised remuneration policy, subject to a shareholder vote in 2020. The Wall Street Journal

notes that this sends “a clear signal to other big oil companies about the kind of pressure and

investor demands they can expect to face going forward.”*

*Sarah Kent, “Shell to Link Carbon Emissions Targets to Executive Pay,” Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2018,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/shell-to-link-carbon-emissions-targets-to-executives-pay-1543843441

2018 (December)

The EPA publishes a proposed rule to revise New Source Review Standards, significantly

relaxing requirements to build new coal-fired plants

Citing “high costs and limited geographic availability of CCS [Carbon Capture and Storage],”

the rule reverses an Obama era standard that identified CCS as the “best system of emission

reduction” for greenhouse gas regulation of new plants, * Acting EPA Administrator Andrew

Wheeler states that the Obama EPA’s requirement of CCS or emissions control equivalent to

what could be achieved by CCS was “disingenuous”: “They knew the tech was not adequately

demonstrated, which is what was required under the law.”

Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at

theCenter for Biological Diversity, comments that "Trump’s proposal is an act of flailing, diehard climate denial.”**

*Environmental Protection Agency, “Review of Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New, Modified, and

Reconstructed Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units,” Federal Register 83 (December 20, 2018): 65424 – 65464,

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/12/20/2018-27052/review-of-standards-of-performance-for-greenhouse-gasemissions-from-new-modified-and-reconstructed

**Miranda Green, “EPA announces new plan to weaken Obama-era greenhouse gas rule,” The Hill, December 6, 2018,

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/420072-epa-announces-new-plan-to-weaken-obama-era-greenhouse-gas-rule

2018 (December)

Global carbon dioxide emissions projected to increase by more than 2% in 2018, with a total

of 37.1 GtCO2 emitted to the atmosphere, a new high

According to the report of the Global Carbon Project, emissions from India are predicted to grow

by 6.3%; from China by 4.7%; from the U.S. by 2.5%; and emissions from the E.U. to decline by

.7%. The final figures for 2017 are reported as follows: “In 2017, global CO2 emissions were

dominated by emissions from China (27%), the USA (15%), the EU (28 member states; 10%)

and India (7%). Growth rates of these countries from 2016 to 2017 were +1.7% for China, -0.5%

for the USA, 1.4% for the EU28, and 4.0% for India. The per-capita CO2emissions in 2017 were

4.8 tCO2 tonnes of carbon person-1yr-1

for the globe, 16.2 tCO2 for the USA, 7.0 tCO2 for China,

7.1 tCO2 for the EU28, and 1.8 tCO2 for India.”* Reflecting on these figures for The Washington

Post, Rob Jackson, a researcher at Stanford University who contributed research for the report,

noted that “We’re not seeing declines in wealthy countries that outpace the increases in other

parts of the world…India is providing electricity and energy to hundreds of millions of people

who don’t have it yet… “That’s very different than in China, where they are ramping up coal use

again in part because their economic growth has been slowing. They’re greenlighting coal-based

projects that have been on hold.”**

*Global Carbon Project, Global Carbon Budget, Summary Highlights 2018, December 5, 2018,

https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/18/highlights.htm

**Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney, “‘We are in trouble.’ Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018.” Washington Post,

December 5, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/05/we-are-trouble-global-carbon-emissionsreached-new-record-high/

2018 (December)

Poll suggests a record high 45% of Americans believe global climate change is serious

enough to merit action immediately.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, surveying 900 adults, finds that two-thirds of Americans

believe action is needed to address global climate change, and only 30% of adults in the survey

say they believe the evidence for climate change is inconclusive or that concern about the issue

is unwarranted. Reports Andrew Duehren in the Wall Street Journal: “The 45% share calling for

immediate action was the highest since the survey began asking the question in 1999 and

compares with 39% who supported immediate action in 2017.” Duehren suggests increasing

concerns may stem from extraordinary recent wildfire and hurricane activity in the U.S., and “two

major scientific reports in the past two months, one from the Trump administration and the other

from the United Nations [which] detailed an enormous societal toll from unchecked climate

change.”*

*Andrew Duehren, “Americans Show Growing Support for Climate-Change Policies, Poll Says,” Wall Street Journal, December 17,

2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-show-growing-support-for-climate-change-policies-poll-says-11545072498

2018 (December)

At the UNFCCC COP24 in Katowice, Poland, delegates approve a “rule book” for moving

forward with the Paris Agreement

The 24th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties

faces serious problems including the United States’ announced withdrawal from the Paris

Agreement, violent protests in Paris against a fuel tax hike, expanding coal use around the world,

and several countries’ backsliding on meeting the goals of the voluntary commitments made in

Paris in 2015. And for the first time in the history of the UN process of responding to climate

change, the Conference fails to formally accept a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change that it had commissioned, on the impact of a 1.5o C. increase in global

temperatures [see 2018 (October)]. Saudi Arabia, the United States, Russia and Kuwait join in

objecting to “welcoming” the report, agreeing only to “take note” of it.* The parties’ final

agreement on a “rule book” for going forward, including some flexibility on the mandatory

emissions reporting requirements for the poorest countries, and confirming methods for

uniformly accounting for greenhouse gas inventories* is described by The Washington Post as

“somewhat miraculous.”

It is generally acknowledged that the world is not on track to meet the

goal of keeping global temperatures from increasing 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels

by 2100. While activists’ hopes are dashed that participants would commit to specific higher

voluntary reductions at this meeting, several countries, including India, Canada, Ukraine, and

Jamaica, pledge to increase their commitments by 2020. ** And in response to the rejection of

the IPCC’s 1.5C report, the EU, Canada, New Zealand and scores of developing countries join a

“High Ambition Coalition,” pledging to toughen their existing commitments to help the world to

stay within a 1.5C rise in global warming. Wendel Trio, director of the Climate Action Network

Europe, is quoted in The Guardian: “The spirit of Paris is back. The statement will boost greater

ambition at the crunch time of these so far underwhelming talks. … We call upon the countries

that have not signed the statement so far to stop ignoring the science.” Frank Bainimarama, the

prime minister of Fiji, warns that by ignoring the IPCC report we will go down in history as “the

generation that blew it – that sacrificed the health of our world and ultimately betrayed humanity

because we didn’t have the courage and foresight to go beyond our short-term individual

concerns: craven, irresponsible and selfish.”*** Comments Rupert Darwall in the Wall Street

Journal: “As interest rates rise, renewable energy can’t compete without carbon pricing—

economists’ magic bullet to solve global warming. Therein lies the biggest cause of despair at

Katowice. Thanks to French President Emmanuel Macron’s carbon-tax folly, politicians of all

stripes are likely to treat carbon pricing like the plague. … Reality has a way of fighting

back.”****

*Matt McGrath, “Climate change: COP24 fails to adopt key scientific report,” BBC News, December 8, 2018,

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46496967

**Joshua Busby, “The latest global climate negotiations just finished. Here’s what happened,” Washington Post, December 17, 2018,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/12/17/the-latest-global-climate-negotiations-just-finished-heres-whathappened/

***Fiona Harvey, Ben Doherty and Jonathan Watts, “Climate change talks lead to heightened pledge to cut emissions,” Guardian,

December 12, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/12/un-chief-antonio-guterres-attempts-to-revive-flaggingclimate-change-talks

****Rupert Darwall, “Defeat in the Air at the Climate Conference,” Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2018,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/defeat-in-the-air-at-the-climate-conference-11545178525

2018 (December)

The Wall Street Journal, in its series “The Price of Climate,” publishes a report on the

dramatic impact on fisheries of climate-driven species migrations

As Robert Lee Hotz reports in “Climate Change Drives Fish Into New Waters, Remaking an

Industry,” there are winners and losers up and down the U.S. coasts and around the world. A

haddock fisherman on the Bering Sea complains that each voyage to find fish takes twice as long

and yields half as many fish as a decade ago: “’It keeps me up at night,’ he says. ‘I woke up at

three in the morning. I couldn’t sleep thinking about where the fish are going.’” As Hotz explains:

“This year, the winter ice that normally covers the northern Bering Seanever formed and, for the

first time since the surveys started 34 years ago, a vast pool of cold bottom water that normally

kept many fish at the southeastern end of the Bering Sea was gone…. So far, there are no real

climate-change winners in Alaska’s fisheries from the northward migration of the catch.”

Meanwhile in Rhode Island, “squid have become so important to the Rhode Island economy that

the legislature recently voted calamari the state’s official appetizer. The U.S. catch of Illex squid,

usually used in calamari, tripled between 2016 and 2017,” and U.S. landings of Jonah crab are 17

times over what they were 20 years ago.*

*Robert Lee Hotz, “Climate Change Drives Fish Into New Waters, Remaking an Industry,” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2018,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-drives-fish-into-new-waters-remaking-an-industry-11545454860

2019 (January)

Study confirms more rapid warming of ocean temperatures than previously observed