Veterans group links climate regulations to national security

A military veterans group is arguing that a Republican bill to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions would weaken national security by harming efforts to reduce dependence on oil.

Operation Free, a coalition of veterans and national security organizations focused on the security benefits of clean energy, is condemning the Energy Tax Prevention Act as a short-sighted bill that would support continued reliance on oil producers that fund terrorism and endanger U.S. troops.

“[House Energy Committee Chairman] Representative Upton continues to press his short-sighted agenda without taking into account the national security concerns and the innovative capacities of clean and sustainable technologies,” Steve Maddox, an Iraq War veteran who served ten years in the US Marine Corps, said in a statement. “If Congress won’t get their act together to regulate carbon emissions, the EPA must be allowed to do their job.”

Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute is celebrating the bill and promoting the arguments of another veterans group that says the U.S. should address the security problem of reliance on Middle East oil by approving the Keystone XL pipeline to increase imports of tar sands oil from Canada.