MoveOn depicts Dingell as a dinosaur

MoveOn is paying for radio advertisements depicting Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) as a dinosaur whose views on global warming haven’t kept pace with the times.

In the ads, which begin running today in Ann Arbor, Mich., a father tests his son’s knowledge of dinosaurs. One example stumps him.

“A Dingellsaurus,” the father explains. “Someone who has been around so long he forgets about the people who sent him there.”

{mosads}The father then identifies Dingell-as-Dingellsaurus as a creature “standing in the way of the first energy bill ever that would really combat global warming.”     

MoveOn’s political action campaign director, Ilyse Hogue, said the dinosaur comparison was directed at the energy bill Dingell helped to write as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The measure “doesn’t even have a bare minimum of what we need to see to confront climate change,” Hogue said.

“It’s a dinosaur policy.”

In addition to the ads, protesters will don dinosaur costumes in rallies scheduled outside Dingell’s Washington and district
offices.

Unlike a recently passed Senate bill, the House energy bill would not require cars and trucks to get better gas mileage. An earlier version included incentives to turn coal into a transportation fuel, an effort that most environmental groups criticized and that has since been dropped.

Other Democrats on the committee are likely to offer an amendment to raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards during a panel markup this week.

Dingell, however, has said he plans to tackle fuel-efficiency standards and greenhouse emissions from power plants this fall as part of a sweeping global warming bill.

Other liberal advocacy groups have complained about the pace of the efforts and the tenor of energy legislation as well. A Greenpeace official, for example, told The Hill that the group will lobby for Dingell’s removal as chairman.

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) later dismissed the suggestion.

A call to a Dingell spokeswoman was not returned by press time.