Democrats question inconvenient timing of Gore's DC global warming speech as gas prices soar
Excerpt: Democratic lawmakers have backed away from the global warming debate in the past few weeks, concentrating instead on attempts to lower gas prices. [...] Al Gore hopes to put global warming back at the top of Washington’s agenda Thursday, but some Democrats in Congress are questioning his timing when they are getting pummeled by Republicans over record gas prices. Gore hopes to deliver a major speech on the environment at Constitution Hall in Washington that will “press the reset button on how people are looking at the energy crisis and the climate crisis,” said Brian Hardwick, spokesman for Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. [...] “I think the American public will be much more receptive to arguments about climate change when gas prices aren’t so critical,” said Rep. Zack Space, a freshman Democrat who represents a mostly rural district in Ohio. Space and other Democrats say that gas prices have begun to overwhelm other issues.
By Alexander Bolton
Al Gore hopes to put global warming back at the top of Washington’s agenda Thursday, but some Democrats in Congress are questioning his timing when they are getting pummeled by Republicans over record gas prices.
Gore hopes to deliver a major speech on the environment at Constitution Hall in Washington that will “press the reset button on how people are looking at the energy crisis and the climate crisis,” said Brian Hardwick, spokesman for Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection.
The former vice president-turned-elder statesman has achieved rock-star status within his party, not to mention a Nobel Prize, for his environmental activism. But Democrats’ political troubles over the issue of gas prices and domestic drilling prompt some lawmakers to wonder about Gore’s timing.
The question some Democrats have is whether a high-profile speech about the importance of protecting the environment might be exploited by Republicans who want to portray their ideological opponents as caring more about polar bears than Americans who have had to pay record prices for gasoline.
“It depends on how it’s presented,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who emphasized he did not want to “pre-empt” Gore’s speech by telling him what to say.
“I think the American public will be much more receptive to arguments about climate change when gas prices aren’t so critical,” said Rep. Zack Space, a freshman Democrat who represents a mostly rural district in Ohio.
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