LINCOLN — Top officials of the Nebraska Chapter of the Sierra Club are disavowing television advertisements targeting Nebraska’s U.S. senators for their votes on climate change legislation.
State Sen. Ken Haar of Lincoln, who has been on the local Sierra Club board, called the ads “stupid” and said he found them “personally offensive.”
“Attacking is not the way we do business in the state of Nebraska,” he said at a Friday press conference. “It reflects badly on Nebraska and makes it harder to work with our senators.”
The ads, which began running this month, play off the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
They depict an oil-covered man being pulled from the ocean. Some ads identify the man as Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and some identify him as Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb. A third ad targets Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.
Workers try to scrub the man clean, while a person identified as the rescue boat captain says, “We’re trying our best out here but until they can support clean energy climate legislation, I don’t think we can save them.”
The ad then cuts to a “newscaster” who comments, “Soaked in big oil’s influence, another slick politician.”
The ads are sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the Service Employees International Union and the VoteVets.org Action Fun.
Haar said the state chapter was not consulted about the ads before they started running.
He said chapter leaders tried to get the national group to stop the ads, or at least remove their endorsement, but to no avail.
While national leaders apologized to the state group, Haar said he was told they would not make any changes in the ads.
David Willett, a spokesman for the national Sierra Club, acknowledged the ads probably weren’t the best fit for Nebraska.
“We knew that there was a disagreement over tone and strategy,” Willett said. “It’s not about the underlying environmental issue.”
Nelson and Johanns both voted in mid-June to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. The two were on the losing side of the vote.
Willett said the ads, which have ended their run, are the beginning of a national campaign to push for legislation addressing climate change. Plans call for an $11 million national effort.
Meanwhile, discussions about the ads are under way within another local environmental group.
Sean Flowerday, executive director of the Nebraska League of Conservation Voters, said he shares some of Haar’s concerns about the ads’ impact on Nebraska environmental efforts.
He said Nelson has been a supporter on environmental issues in the past.
Flowerday said the decision to run the ads also was made at his group’s national level, not by the Nebraska group.
Earlier, Nelson said he won’t be swayed by the ads. He said his concern is that any proposal is scrutinized for its impact on the state’s economy and on electricity rates for individuals, agriculture and business.
“They can’t run enough ads to make me vote for something that will raise the utility rates of the people of Nebraska,” he said.
Nelson said generally that it often seems that such ad campaigns also are intended as fundraising tools for the groups behind them.
World-Herald staff writer Joseph Morton contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com
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