PRESS RELEASE:

Today, Democrats blasted Chris Gibson for saying one thing, and doing another on energy policy. Opposing cap-and-trade is a cornerstone of Gibson’s campaign, yet Gibson has hired a lobbyist to run his campaign who made thousands pushing to get cap-and-trade through the congress.

Gibson insists he’s “stridently opposed to cap-and-trade,” predicting that it would “raise the price of everything, which would make us less competitive in the world market and basically drive all food production from the state and the country.” (Post-Star, 9/9/10, click; Times-Union, 6/26/10, click)

Yet, after his last Tea Party-affiliated campaign manager left, Gibson handed the reins over to lobbyist William Teator, the President and CEO of Capital Advocates LLC (Times Union, 9/28/10, click). According to lobbying disclosure forms, Energy East Corporation paid Teator $20,000 to lobby for the Waxman-Markey Clean Energy Legislation, the leading cap-and-trade proposal before Congress. (Lobbying Disclosure Form, click)

“If Chris Gibson’s Campaign is known for anything, it’s the candidate’s willingness to say or do anything to get elected. Initially, Gibson was pro-choice, and then he hooked up with an anti-choice zealot, refused requests to clarify his abortion position, and secured the backing of an extreme anti-abortion PAC. It was a similar story with the Small Business Jobs Bill. Gibson first opposed it, and then, after getting heat for it, said that, come to think of it, he supports the jobs bill. Now, comes the latest: after months of talking about how a cap-and-trade bill would kill U.S. competitiveness, we learn that Gibson hired a pro-cap-and-trade lobbyist as his campaign manager,” said Jay Jacobs, chairman of the NYS Democratic Committee.

“Washington is already full of politicians like Chris Gibson who say one thing, but do another. The last thing we need is one more,” concluded Jacobs.

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