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CWE pastor leads charge for eco-friendly legislation
(by Kara Krekeler - March 17, 2010)
While much of the country is focused on the health care efforts in Washington, D.C., a handful of St. Louis faith leaders are trying to draw some attention to a climate change resolution.
One of those leading the charge is Mary Gene Boteler, pastor of the Central West End’s Second Presbyterian Church. During a conference call with reporters and other faith leaders in late February, Boteler called on religious leaders to speak out against the Murkowski Amendment, a Senate resolution sponsored by Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases.
“When creation is in peril, all theologists need to stand up for it,” Boteler said, explaining that it’s inherent all religious people to stand up for all God’s creation. “I’m not a scientist, I’m a theologian. But the path we’re presently on is not sustainable.”
The EPA acquired the regulation ability in 2007 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act applies to greenhouse gases, despite the fact that they were not a major concern when the act was passed in 1977. In early 2009, the Obama administration began taking steps to comply with that ruling.
Last fall, in response to the Obama administration’s moves, Murkowski submitted to the Senate an ultimately unsuccessful amendment to the Clean Air Act that would put a one-year moratorium on the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases from stationary sources, such as factories, dry cleaners and other businesses.
In January, Murkowski took another tack by sponsoring a joint resolution disapproving of the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulation and resolving that “such rule shall have no force or effect.” The resolution is currently in committee, but has 40 co-sponsors, including Missouri Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond.
According to Murkowski’s senate website, she “believes that climate change is a real threat,” but that allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases would be “economically devastating.”
“We must look at all possible options for regulating climate change, from a carbon tax to cap and trade, while doing our best to ensure that any legislation enacted will ensure meaningful emissions reductions and economic security,” the policy statement reads.
Boteler called the economic argument against greenhouse gas regulations “as ludicrous as the Southerners who argued against ending slavery because it would hurt the economy.”
“We need to create a green, sustainable economy,” she said.
Boteler also called out Murkowski’s hefty campaign donations from oil, gas and utility industries, noting that they call into question the sincerity of her concerns regarding climate change.
“What is clear is that America needs to take a step forward through a comprehensive clean energy jobs bill and not a step backward with this giveaway to the forces of dirty coal and big oil,” Boteler said.
On the home front, however, Boteler stressed that Missourians can best effect change by writing to Sen. Claire McCaskill and urging her to vote against the resolution, and by working to be more environmentally aware on their own.
Boteler said that Second Presbyterian has worked to increase awareness of environmental issues in its own community by hosting classes about sustainable living, as well as a lecture from an environmental ethics professor.
“Our congregation is attempting to start with itself…We’ve tried to weave the environmental messages through everything we do as a congregation,” Boteler said, adding that the church has been relying on a book by Rebecca Barnes Davies that details ways in which churches can “start down the road” to environmental awareness. “People are more in tune to the conversation than they were a couple years ago.”
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