From the Brigades meeting this past weekend; just wanted to highlight this portion of Sen. Herring’s speech with some “front-page” love.
The answer is, the Attorney General can do a lot in that area [of climate change]. First of all, we need to have an Attorney General who believes in science [APPLAUSE]. When Ken Cuccinelli went after Mike Mann, the researcher at UVA, that was one of those that really told me this is going to become a pattern with him. Sometimes there are grey areas in the law, but he has so manipulated the law; no reasonable attorney in my view could have reached the conclusion that the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act could be used to basically persecute a researcher, and the Attorney General did it because he disagreed with his ideas and conclusions, which is downright unAmerican, it is!
So, number one, we need to have an Attorney General who believes that a lot of what we’re doing here on Earth…is affecting the climate and to take some responsible action and believes in science. We also need to send a message that’s the complete opposite of what he did; the message that that sent to people outside of Virginia was that we were a backward state, that we were anti-science, and here we are from an economic development standpoint trying to attract top researchers to Virginia’s universities…attract technology companies. Well, if you’re a researcher thinking about bringing a research team to Virginia, why would you do that if the Attorney General’s going to come after you and subpoena your data; you’re not…the Attorney General is the guardian of the public interest…and the public has an interest in making sure that regulations are applied equally and fairly, making sure that our environmental laws are being enforced, those are the kinds of things an Attorney General can do.
Personally, I can’t wait for the election of Mark Herring as Virginia Attorney General. The enormous, positive difference from Ken Kookinell’s reign of terror will be such a relief, and also such great news for Virginia, it’s hard to overstate it. To help Mark, please click here. Thanks.
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