The nation’s leading liberal thinkers came together yesterday at the Center for American Progress Ideas Conference in Washington to plot a path back to national relevance. One Democrat Senator had a curious idea for the party currently struggling to appeal to working class voters, calling to put every coal plant in the country “into a museum.” But it gets worse. The Senator calling to put an entire sector of the U.S. workforce out of jobs, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, runs a PAC that funds the campaigns of several Democrat Senators representing coal producing states.

• Jeff Merkley’s PAC, Opportunity & Renewal PAC, has donated over half a million dollars to Democrat Senate candidates since 2009.
• Those Senators receiving contributions from Merkley’s PAC include:

  • Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania - $2,500

  • Senator Jon Tester of Montana - $6,000

  • Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana - $2,000

  • Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota - $3,000

  • Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio - $10,000

  • Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia - $2,000

  • Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri - $1,500

• Each of these Democrat Senators represents a coal-producing state that stands to lose jobs if radical environmentalists like Jeff Merkley get their way and Washington liberals’ War on Coal continues.

“Washington Democrats have long wanted to put coal miners out of work, so Jeff Merkley’s comments should come as no surprise,” said NRSC Communications Director Katie Martin. “These coal-state Senators have had no problem taking campaign cash from far-left environmentalists like Merkley, because they fundamentally agree with his radical positions.”

Background:

Jeff Merkley at Center for American Progress Ideas Conference, 5/16/17 – “Let’s take and put every coal electricity generating plant into a museum by the year 2050.

Jeff Merkley’s Leadership PACs include Opportunity and Renewal PAC. (Open Secrets, accessed 5/16/17)

Opportunity and Renewal PAC has donated over $500,000 to Democrat Senate Campaigns since 2009. (FEC Campaign Finance Database, accessed 5/16/17)

Annual Coal Report 2015 (U.S. Energy Information Administration, November 2016)

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