In their anxious anxiety to show that they are still relevant and to take some revenge on President Obama's reelection senate GOP's John McCain and Lindsey Graham staged an ugly character assassination on Susan Rice, President Obama's favored candidate to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. With Rice's withdrawal from consideration it seems that the Goppers will get their wish with Obama's selection of John Kerry as SoS. Has the Goppers lock step obstruction to newly reelected President Obama succeeded in the equivalent of a dive into the frying pan? I hope so.
If there was any criticism at all coming from the democrats regarding Susan Rice it was coming from the eco-left with the reveal of the mega investments Susan Rice has in the tar sands oil fields. The financial investments are such that presents Ms. Rice with a major conflict of interest in any decision to forward the XL tar sands pipeline, which is the responsibility of the state department and created a red flag for environmentalists.
Mother Jones
Kerry is among the most fierce advocates for climate action in the Senate. Here he is in a floor speech from August talking about why climate change is "as significant a level of importance" as Syria and Iran:
Well, this issue actually is of as significant a level of importance, because it affects life itself on the planet. Because it affects ecosystems on which the oceans and the land depend for the relationship of the warmth of our earth and the amount of moisture that there is and all of the interactions that occur as a consequence of our climate.
Kerry is also the co-author of the last major climate bill anyone tried to pass in the Senate. At its rollout in September 2009, he called the bill "the beginning of one of the most important battles we will ever face, as legislators and as citizens."
He's also been a champion of international climate action since way back in 1992, when he attended the first major meeting on it in Rio, Brazil.
Hillary Clinton has seemed to understand the urgency of climate action especially in her full support in the creation of
Clean Air and Climate Initiative which is an essential component in mitigating the worst effects of climate change.
But perhaps future SoS Kerry will continue Hillary Clinton's work and create an even stronger contribution with the rejection of the XL pipeline. How would the Goppers oil money backers respond to that? After all they could have had tar sands investor Susan Rice.