Dear friends,
Mary Peltola retained Alaska’s at-large House seat with a positive campaign and a large margin. The timing — just before Thanksgiving — made her victory extra sweet.
The vote is not yet certified, but it is not in question. Peltola, the first Alaskan native to serve in Congress, campaigned on a “pro-fish, pro-family, pro-freedom” platform.
It was a ranked-choice election, which explains the delayed results.
In the end, Peltola took just under 55% of the vote. Palin got just over 45%. Palin got a boost once fellow Republican Nick Begich III, who finished third, was eliminated and his 64,392 ballots redistributed during ranked choice tabulation. Nearly two-thirds of his voters chose Palin as their second choice, but 21% didn’t make a second choice – and nearly 12% went for Peltola, who won the two-year term.
A lot of Alaskans could not bring themselves to vote for Sarah Palin — with her far-right bona fides — even as a second choice. That is refreshing.
The Department of the Interior has proposed a new rule designed to reduce the amount of methane that is flared on public land. The rule is long overdue, since the amount of methane vented and flared increased by a factor of five between the 1990s and 2010s.
The department estimates the proposed rule would prevent the waste of billions of cubic feet of gas and generate just under $40 million a year in royalties.
Once the rule is published in the Federal Register, we will be able to view the rule and related documentation. There is a 60-day public comment period and we will participate.
Governor Hochul f i n a l l y signed the cryptomining moratorium last week! She was late, and she was under pressure from the crypto industry, and crypto-bro Eric Adams weighed in, favoring a veto.
The moratorium is sound environmental policy that will prevent new fossil-fuel intensive proof-of-work mining. This is our win.
The workers will be on the clock and there’s something sweet about knowing that every time they burst into applause, they will be paid for it.
Colorado Springs is in a county that calls itself a ‘gun sanctuary’, refusing to enforce federal gun legislation.
Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, has suggested that the federal government should restrict federal funding for law enforcement in such localities. that call themselves gun sanctuaries and refuse to enforce federal and even state gun legislation. He proposes restricting federal funding for law enforcement.
“It’s a growing problem in the country and we’re going to have to have a conversation about that in the Senate. Do we want to to continue to supply funding to law enforcement in counties that refuse to implement state and federal gun laws?”
I like the idea that defunding the police might be the federal response to local failures to enforce the law. We have a lot of work to do on this issue. Start here.
Call on the Senate to pass a ban on assault weapons. This quick action is from Newtown Alliance.
There’s still time to phone bank with the Environmental Voter Project!
with love,
L