Heller targeted

On Nov. 23, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) began a Facebook ad campaign critical of U.S. Sen Dean Heller of Nevada.

The group's grievance is Heller's votes to kill the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's authority to limit the carbon pollution power plants can emit into the open air. The Facebook ad is targeted to Nevada, and will run for a week.

In a prepared statement, LCV president Gene Karpinski said Heller “voted to let big polluters continue dumping unlimited carbon pollution into our air, making it harder to breathe for the nearly half a million Nevadans who suffer from asthma.”

The Senate twice voted on Nov. 17 to strike the Obama administration's climate change rules—just a few days before President Obama departed for the Paris climate talks. Senators voted 52-46 to stop carbon dioxide limits for existing power plants, which require a cut in carbon emissions of almost a third in the next decade and a half. A second vote did the same thing for future plants.

The embarrassment to the president was reduced by the fact that the measures did not pass by a veto-proof majority.

The Senate Republican leaders delayed a vote on anti-terror legislation to vote on the carbon resolutions. Three Republicans and three Democrats voted with the other side.