McCormick criticizes candidate's cash conflicting with climate claims

Environmental champion Lisa McCormick has called for the prosecution of fossil fuel executives responsible for the climate crisis, the nationalization of oil companies, and for using their resources to fund a transition to renewable energy sources but now she is calling First Lady Tammy Murphy’s claims about combating climate change, "a pack of lies."

"Tammy Murphy cannot ignore the hefty investments that she and her husband have made in fossil fuel companies," said McCormick, an ardent critic of the millionaire governor who has called out the First Lady for hypoccrisy, corruption and deception during the opening stages of her candidacy for US Senate.

Phil Murphy filed financial disclosure statements during the Wall Street millionaire's tenure as governor and US ambassador to Germany.

Based on those financial disclosure statements, Phil Murphy reported ownership in a long list of fossil fuel companies when he was ambassador, from 2009 to 2013, or governor, from 2018 to the present.

Among them are ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Hess Corporation, Marathon Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, and Valero Energy.

"These lying leaders engage in a charade of concern, while behind closed doors, they strike deals that will further entrench our dependency on fossil fuels," said McCormick.

"In Tammy Murphy’s ad, she says 'combating climate change has been a focus of mine for decades because the environment our kids grow up in can be the difference in childhood asthma, cancer rates and so many other things' but the truth is, the Virginia Republican and her husband are making profits from heavily subisdized polluting industries," said McCormick, who took four of ten votes away from US Senator Bob Menendez in 2018, while the Murphys were solidly behind the corrupt lawmaker.

"When I hear that commercial, my blood just boils because she is lying," said McCormick. "With enough money, an ad may be repeated over and over, but that is not going to make it true. Tammy Murphy’s ads are being paid for with the profits from fossil fuel companies that are heavily subisdized by taxpayers at the same time they are polluting and destroying the planet."

“The fossil fuel industry has knowingly damaged the planet for decades while misleading the public and influencing Congress to weaken environmental regulations,” said McCormick. “We need to hold these corporate criminals accountable and seize their assets to fund a just transition to clean energy.”

Lisa McCormick said the nationalization of oil companies is the only way to ensure that these corporations are properly regulated and that their profits are used to benefit the public.

“The oil and gas industry is too powerful and too corrupt to be allowed to operate in its current form,” McCormick said. “We need to break it up and nationalize it so that it can be managed in the public interest.”

“The fossil fuel industry has been a major obstacle to progress on climate change,” said McCormick. “They have spent millions of dollars to sow doubt about the science of climate change and to block policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

McCormick’s proposal would allow the government to take control of oil companies and use their profits to invest in renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, and other climate-friendly programs.

McCormick said Murphy’s dirty money from polluter profits is not going to be enough to stop the grassroots army she is building.

"You don't have to be a big Beatles fan to realize that First Lady Tammy Murphy can't buy New Jersey’s love," said McCormick. "After four decades of class warfare, without most of the working middle-class Americans even being aware that this slaughter has been going on, it is time that Americans rise to the responsibility of citizenship and start fighting back."

McCormick is running ads that contrast her position on issues with those of Tammy Murphy, Menendez and Congressman Andy Kim—who was Menendez's running mate in 2018—because she is the only one that supports Medicare for All, legislation to outlaw bribery, and requirements for fair elections.

McCormick also wants to genuinely fight to stop global warming and transition to a clean energy economy, prevent looming crisis and expand Social Security, and make an economic U-turn for America by reversing Reaganomics, the discredited supply-side trickle down theories that exploded the national debt and created the vast chasm of income and wealth inequality that enables rich people like Murphy to buy political power.

"There is not way that one of them is going to reverse Reaganomics, outlaw bribery, and take the ‘for sale’ signs off our government. Gridlocked government and purchasing the power to change the rules is just fine for people like Tammy Murphy, Bob Menendez and Andy Kim but ordinary working middle-class Americans know that we need to elect one of us," said McCormick. "Americans need to remembver that we are citizens of the richest and most powerful nation on the planet, and that we are not powerless."

"The time for complacency is over. The time for empty rhetoric is over. The time for corporate influence and political corruption is over," said McCormick. "We are facing an existential threat, a crisis that threatens the very fabric of our civilization. Yet, our leaders fail to act with the urgency and determination that this crisis demands."

"I do not want to mince words. I denounce the corporate influence that has corrupted our political systems as well as the greed and corruption that has prevented us from taking meaningful action on climate change," said McCormick. "She may not look like the devil but Tammy Murphy is the face of greed and corruption that has been killing our kids, poisoning our planet and destroying our democracy."

"After all the times that we have been burned, I just hope voters have learned," said McCormick. "that it's not who you look like, but who you are."

McCormick’s plan has been met with praise from environmental groups and activists.

Others who have proposed to nationalize oil companies include the Sunrise Movement, the youth campaigners behind the Green New Deal movement; Robert Pollin, the co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; William S. Becker, a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director; and Mark Paul, an economist at the progressive Roosevelt Institute.

McCormick’s plan to nationalize oil companies is likely to face strong opposition from the fossil fuel industry and its allies in Congress, but McCormick is determined to fight for her vision of a clean energy future.

“The climate crisis is an existential threat to our planet,” said McCormick. “We need to act now to save our planet, and that means taking on the fossil fuel industry.”

Lisa McCormick is a progressive Democrat who took four of ten votes away from US Senator Bob Menendez in the 2018 Democratic primary election and she is committed to fighting for a clean energy future as a leading voice in the fight against climate change and for bold action to address the crisis.