Speaking at a sparsely-attended luncheon in Fairbanks, AK on Friday, Senator Murkowski (R-AL) touted her failed effort to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions as a ‘badge of honor.’ She went on to explain why she considered the maneuver, which went down by a 53-47 margin on June 10th, a qualified success. “We made our point. Forty-seven members of the Senate said they do not want to allow the agency to set climate change policy,” she said.

As luck would have it, another institution has plans to ‘set climate change policy’ in the weeks ahead — the United States Senate. And fortunately for Senator Murkowski, as a United States Senator, she has the power to influence that process as it plays out. By all indications, Senator Murkowski should be a leading Republican in these negotiations. In response to the announcement of a new Climate Science Center at the University of Alaska earlier this year, she rightly called the state ‘ground zero for climate change.’ Last September Murkowski told reporters that Congress needs to work on climate change but should take its time considering options. And by all accounts, the Senate has done just that in the past nine months, trying and giving up on a variety of approaches deemed too controversial to attract significant Republican support.

But now there are a several proposals and a handful of standalone measures on the table. A group of seventeen Senators — which includes Senator Murkowski — will be meeting with President Obama Tuesday to discuss a path forward. Majority Leader Reid has indicated he’ll be moving the legislation immediately after July recess.

If Senator Murkowski intends to play a constructive role in this process, her opportunity is now. Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Senator Murkowski, claims she intends to play such a role, citing her support of Senator Lugar’s energy legislation. According to Dillon, Murkowski supports “Sen. Lugar’s latest efforts to address climate.” Perhaps sensing the angle I was pursuing, he added, “so any accusation that she opposes dealing with emissions is completely false.”

Despite intimations to the contrary, Senator Murkowski is far too beholden to corporate interests to take the true interests of her state seriously. While Alaska is literally melting, Murkowski’s spokesman is busy attacking bloggers for asking hard questions. While her state’s infrastructure suffers from the impacts of climate change, Murkowski lets corporate lobbyists write legislation for her. And while a bipartisan group of Senators works to find consensus on climate legislation, Senator Murkowski does everything in her power to keep her funders happy by thwarting progress at every turn.

Majority Leader Reid gave a speech today at a major geothermal energy conference (PDF) in New York, unexpectedly dropping a few bombshells regarding climate change legislation and Senator Murkowski’s recent efforts to gut the Clean Air Act.

On climate legislation, Senator Reid said (emphasis mine):

“We have a lot on our plate. We have to finish reforming health insurance and Wall Street, and also must help bring Americans out of unemployment. But we are not so busy that we can’t find the time to address comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

“Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman have taken a lead in trying to craft a framework that would get more than 60 votes. We will need at least that many for two reasons: One, because any bill that seeks to rein in global warming pollution will be fought very hard by the same companies that profit most heavily from polluting. And two, because the rules of the Senate make it easy for a determined minority to stand in the way of all the good ideas you’re hearing at this forum.

Today, Representative Ed Markey pushed this story back to the forefront with a Huffington Post piece. After setting the record straight on Romney’s falsehood and explaining the urgency of clean energy legislation, Markey finishes strong:

So the next time you hear Mitt Romney or other opponents of clean energy and climate legislation railing about the costs of action, you should multiply your suspicion by whatever number they are attempting to sell. Odds are, it is far from even-handed.

While this is a solid piece, and Representative Markey makes his case well, he barely mentions the other Republican politicians who have repeated this lie. I understand the value of pegging this on a potential 2012 Presidential candidate, but there are over a dozen current elected officials in the Republican party who have repeated this lie as well.

Since I last updated the count a few weeks ago, eight additional Republican politicians and party organizations have repeated the lie, bringing the total to 20.

Several members of the United States Senate have a serious credibility problem when it comes to climate change. Chief among them is Senator James Inhofe, whose career highlight was saying on the Senate floor that global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

Mr. Inhofe’s most recent assault on the debate over domestic climate legislation was his insistence on repeating a misleading analysis of the costs of climate legislation, despite all evidence to the contrary. Incredibly, when I asked Senator Inhofe’s staff to respond to the fact that his statements on climate legislation were clearly factually inaccurate, they responded with the single-most convoluted statement I’ve ever seen. Ian Malcomb of Jurassic Park had some choice words for this 1700+ word rant as well. This is what we’re up against folks, and it is neither logical, credible nor reality-based. I would engage in a point-counterpoint back and forth with Mr. Inhofe’s staff — as I recently did with Senator Murkowski’s staff on the same issue — but it would clearly be fruitless. Rather than respond to Mr. Dempsey’s largely irrelevant arguments, I’ll simply refer you to this FactCheck.org refutation of the crux of his argument. Flail away, Mr. Dempsey, but reality is on our side.

On Monday, I wrote about the eight Republican politicians (note: since then Rep. Pete Sessions joined the party) who had already begun parroting this false talking point. I followed up with many of these Republican politicians, requesting clarification on their factually incorrect statements. The most interesting response — by far — came by way of an series of increasingly heated emails between myself and Murkowski staffer Robert Dillon. Mr. Dillon is the Republican Communications Director for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

I mentioned last week that both CBS and Politico were forced to issue corrections on pieces they published citing inflated cost-estimates of a version of climate legislation that was never considered by Congress.

Despite immediate and forceful pushback from the Treasury Department, the Congressional Budget Office and environmental groups, solid reporting by the Wonk Room and the Washington Post, and thorough debunkings by Media Matters and Politifact, several leading GOP elected officials have begun citing the highly misleading figure.