AFP Applauds OK-5 Candidate Kevin Calvey

Americans for Prosperity Applauds U.S. Congressional Candidate
Kevin Calvey

-Signs No Climate Tax Pledge-

The Oklahoma chapter of the free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity (AFP-OK) today applauded U.S. Congressional candidate Kevin Calvey (5th District) for signing the group’s “No Climate Tax Pledge.” By doing so, Calvey joins over 285 lawmakers and candidates on the federal, state and local levels pledging to “oppose legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.”

“The one thing elected officials should be able to agree on is that global warming shouldn’t be used as an excuse to hike taxes on citizens and businesses,” said AFP-OK State Director Stuart Jolly. “We encourage all of Oklahoma’s elected officials and candidates for elected office to sign the pledge.”

Other Oklahoma signers include U.S. Senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn; U.S. Representatives John Sullivan and Tom Cole; and Oklahoma Speaker of the House Chris Benge.

Cap-and-trade took its first step toward enactment when the U.S. House narrowly passed the Waxman- Markey energy tax bill, which escaped the lower chamber by a scant seven votes despite significant bipartisan opposition. Senators Boxer (D-Calif.) and Kerry (D-Mass.) have just begun committee hearings on companion legislation in the Senate. However, key Democratic senators have expressed opposition to attempting to pass cap-and-trade this year.

President Obama has made no secret of his support for the bill, which would be the largest tax increase in American history. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has scored the plan as an $846 billion increase in federal revenue, a burden that will be borne by taxpayers and consumers for decades to come.

“Using the guise of climate change to transfer dollars from hard-working citizens to bureaucratic big government is unacceptable,” said Jolly. “Regardless of their stance on global warming, this should be common ground for all of our elected officials at all levels of government.”

Democrats to GUT U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Eleven Senate Democrats have called on President Obama to quickly replace the chief of the Army Corps of Engineers in the latest move in an increasingly nasty spat centered on accusations that Corps leaders have cozy business relations that undermine federal wetlands protection.

The Democrats -- including Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. -- sent a letter Wednesday to Obama asking for the speedy ousting of Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works John Paul Woodley Jr.

In the letter, which does not refer to Woodley by name, the senators cite a report from Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform and Transportation and Infrastructure panels in alleging that "the current Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works 'placed the interests of corporate lobbyists over the scientific determinations of career staff ...' in several decisions regarding Clean Water Act protections."

This includes Woodley's role in producing a dual Environmental Protection Agency-Army Corps document in December intended to clarify an earlier 2007 memo that itself was meant to clear up a muddled Supreme Court ruling in 2006 regarding federal wetlands protection.

Democrats and environmental groups have charged the revised guidance provides less protection and is more confusing than the memo it replaced.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Woodley called the House Democrats' report "false, malicious, fraudulent and a tissue of lies." The report "is the product of a review of some 40- or 50,000 pages out of which a small number are taken out of context, misinterpreted, misapplied in order to create a fictional story," he said. "No lobbyist ever asked me to do anything in this case."

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., issued a statement praising the senators for joining the effort to "expeditiously" replace Woodley and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Dunlop.

"Based on the actions of these two individuals during their service with the Corps, it would be far better to allow a career civil servant to serve as an interim, acting-assistant secretary, rather than allow either Secretary Woodley or Deputy Assistant Secretary Dunlop to remain in control of the construction and regulatory authorities of the agency," Oberstar said.

Oberstar and the senators also say Woodley has been lax in implementing reforms included in the 2007 Water Resources Development Act.