STAR-ADVERTISER
<b>Brian Schatz:</b><i> The U.S. senator has used a sizable fundraising advantage to dominate airwaves</i>
Select an option below to continue reading this premium story.
Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading.
The League of Conservation Voters has spent $380,000 on a television advertising buy in Hawaii on behalf of U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, praising the senator for his leadership on climate change.
The national group, which has endorsed Schatz over U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in the Democratic primary, had purchased issue ads in November in Hawaii describing the senator’s support for wind energy.
The new ad buy will help expand Schatz’s presence on television in the final two weeks before the primary. The senator has already used his sizable fundraising advantage over Hanabusa to dominate the airwaves.
"Sen. Schatz is tirelessly leading the fight to halt the climate change that will devastate Hawaii and is fighting to hold corporate polluters accountable by requiring them to slash their emissions. Hawaii needs his vision and leadership in the United States Senate," Daniel J. Weiss, the LCV’s senior vice president for campaigns, said in a statement.
The League of Conservation Voters recognized Schatz for his support for carbon-pricing legislation and President Barack Obama’s clean-power plan to reduce carbon pollution at power plants. The group also said Schatz was one of the senators who took to the Senate floor for one night in March to speak about climate change.
The carbon-pricing legislation has not advanced in Congress; Obama just proposed the clean-power plan in June, so it remains a work in progress; and several critics dismissed the Senate climate change speeches as largely symbolic, since senators were not unified behind specific legislation.
Meanwhile, Women Vote! — a political arm of EMILY’s List, the national group that helps elect Democratic women who favor abortion rights — has dropped more than $54,850 on mailers for Hanabusa, federal campaign-finance reports show. The group has endorsed the congresswoman.