GOP Rebranding: Gabriel Gomez Edition

Massachusetts Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez says he's green!

That's it. That's the whole rebranding. Opposes climate action, just like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Supports building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, just like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Opposes Cape Wind, just like big polluting Republican bankrollers like the Koch brothers. Backs the same old oil-and-coal-above all energy policies that Tea Partiers do.

But did you hear the part about he SAID GREEN? Totally new and improved, you guys!

Gabriel Gomez Puts Personal Profit Over Protecting Massachusetts

Gabriel Gomez's incoherence on climate science and energy policy makes a lot more sense once you take a deeper dive into his personal finances, as Joshua Israel did at ThinkProgress:

A ThinkProgress review of Gomez’s personal financial disclosure filings reveals that a significant amount of his own money is invested, directly or indirectly, in dirty energy stocks and bonds. These include investments of between $1,000 and $15,000 each in: 

1. Emerson Electric Co., which automates oil and gas operations for energy companies.
2. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company.
3. Occidental Petroleum Corp., an international oil and gas exploration and production company.
4. Schlumberger Ltd., a the world’s largest supplier of technology and project management services for the oil and gas industry worldwide.
5. Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., a deepwater drilling contractor for the oil and gas industry.
6. DTE Energy Co., a Detroit-based electric and gas utility.
7. Dominion Resources, a Richmond-based electric utility.
8. Xcel Energy Inc., a Minneapolis-based electric and gas utility.
9. Gulf Power Co., a Florida-based electric utility.
10. Southern California Edison, a California-based electric utility.
11. Entergy Louisiana, a Louisiana-based electric utility

By doing the dirty work of his out-of-state polluting investments, Gomez is turning his back on the more than 71,000 people who work in Massachusetts' booming clean energy industry. He's also ignoring the impacts that climate change is already having on Massachusetts - stronger storms like Sandy, rising sea levels, deeper droughts, and deadlier summer heat waves.

As I'm knocking on doors for Ed Markey in the weeks ahead, this story speaks to the one thing I'll be telling undecided voters: Gomez is so beholden to big money - polluters, national Republicans, shady tax breaks - that we just can't trust the guy to do what's right for Massachusetts.

Gabriel Gomez is Completely Incoherent on Climate and Energy Policy

Gabriel Gomez, the Republican opponent of Democrat Ed Markey in the U.S. Senate special election to fill John Kerry's seat in Massachusetts, is working hard to be all things to all people, and nowhere is that more evident than his positions truthiness on climate and energy policy:

Climate change is real. However, while science says climate change is real, addressing the problem must be done rationally. Unfortunately, many solutions offered by politicians in Washington are not rational, and would put America at a competitive disadvantage. We need a serious energy agenda that promotes private sector innovation in both the United States and in other countries around the world.

Oh, I get it. He supports confronting climate change with a national policy to spur clean energy projects like Cape Wind, right? Not exactly:

Gomez, however, said [Cape Wind] is an issue that should be decided at the local level, and that the local authorities have been pretty much excluded from the process. Gomez made it clear his is opposed to Cape Wind.

So, local control all the way! Then he must oppose Keystone XL tar sands pipeline because of strong local opposition, right? Wrong again:

The Obama administration is wrong in stopping the Keystone pipeline, a project that will create jobs, drive down our energy costs, and help us to become energy independent.

Worth noting: Gabriel Gomez thinks that for some reason TransCanada is dramatically lowballing the benefits of its own Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. TransCanada doesn't say Keystone will drive down energy costs - it knows Keystone won't lower gas prices anywhere in America and would actually raise gas prices in the Midwest. TransCanada doesn't say Keystone will make America energy independent - it knows Keystone is an export pipeline that's being built to get tar sands to the Gulf Coast and the international market so Canada doesn't have to dump tar sands oil in the Midwest anymore.

To sum up, Gabriel Gomez says he understands climate change is threatening Massachusetts with extreme weather like superstorm Sandy, rising sea levels, and deadly summer heat waves - he just doesn't want to do anything about it. And Gomez thinks we need a national energy policy, except in cases where the mansion views of Republican donors are threatened, or if those donors really want a polluting project built even if it's not in America's national interest.

What's the reason for Gomez's incoherence? With the U.S. Senate's antiquated disclosure laws, we don't know yet where Gomez is getting his money. But given his refusal to sign the people's pledge to reject big-spending special interests, I'd suspect he personally knows exactly what climate change means, but he knows the implications of that truth are far too inconvenient for today's fossil fuel money-addicted Republican Party.