Sen. Merkley Profiled in Washington Spectator

Oregon's freshman Senator Jeff Merkley, who had a lifetime 96% rating from OLCV, is profiled in today's Washington Spectator.

An excerpt:

Asked about his position on the cap and trade bill, Merkley begins with a survey of geologic time: four 280-parts-per-million spikes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past 400,000 years, and the burning of coal and gas for energy now has us at 380 parts-per-billion and climbing.  “It’s well established that carbon dioxide, as well as increases in methane gas, trap heat,” he said. “You can see evidence in the Arctic and the Antarctic, warming of the ocean, the melting Greenland Ice Sheet and with the thawing of the permafrost.…This is a real stewardship issue for our planet and I think we need to be very aggressive in taking on carbon dioxide and other global warming gases.”

Merkley's campaign manager Jon Isaacs will take the helm as OLCV's new Executive Director on October 5th.