A Big Win for Climate Change Denial: Republicans to Target EPA Regulations After Taking Senate

[Triana]

With their newfound control of both houses of Congress, the Republican agenda includes a rollback of environmental regulations, including President Obama’s new rules limiting carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. We discuss this prospect with Lee Fang, a reporting fellow with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, and blogger about money and politics at the the Republic Report. "This Republican majority owes its fortunes to a small number of fossil companies who were very big campaign spenders," Fang says. "And the next Congress will see some of the most avowed climate change deniers taking control of key congressional committees in the Senate and in the House."

Video and Transcript/link: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/5/a_big_win_for_climate_change

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Global Warming Denier Will Head Committee Dealing With Global Warming

In handing Republicans control of the Senate on Tuesday, Americans effectively voted for the party's hostile plans against President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy. Their votes also put the Senate's environment and climate policy into the hands of the worst science-denier in national politics: Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who is almost certainly the next chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Inhofe claimed in 2003 that global warming might help humanity. “It's also important to question whether global warming is even a problem for human existence. Thus far no one has seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. In fact, it appears that just the opposite is true: that increases in global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how we live our lives.”

In that same speech, he argued that an international body of climate change scientists “resembled a Soviet-style trial, in which the facts are predetermined, and ideological purity trumps technical and scientific rigor.”

LINK: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/11/global-warming-denier-will-head-committee

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1. Union of Concerned Scientists: we're still here defending science

Last night's election results may feel like a setback, but let's make one thing clear: we know Americans trust science, support cutting global warming emissions, and want help for communities struggling with the very real consequences of climate change.

When one party holds a majority in both houses of Congress, there is a responsibility to lead. Voters will rightly expect progress rather than excuses. So UCS will stand ready to work with all elected officials, especially on issues that should not be partisan in the first place, such as global warming.

But there is no sugarcoating this: the election results heighten the risk of "backsliding" on a range of issues we care about. For example, we may see actions to delay or repeal rules we are fighting for, such as the vital limits on global warming emissions from power plants.

Congress may now try to pass laws that handicap our agencies from using the best science to guide decision making. And the gridlock we have seen for the last four years may get worse—with more government shut downs, spurious "investigations," brinkmanship, and inconsequential haggling that divert us from the pressing problems we face.

So what is our plan?

We start with the recognition that we have science and the American public on our side: we know it is not in the interest of the new majority in Congress to block popular initiatives that clean up our air and help protect our communities from storms, flooding, and fire. But we have more work to do to build public demand for action on climate change, and this means ramping up at the local level to focus greater attention on the consequences of global warming that are already directly affecting people's lives.

So, we will continue to do what we do best: advance science-based solutions, rally public support for them, and work with a broad coalition of partners to explore new opportunities for progress. At the same time, we will foil any attempts to turn back the successes we have made.

We also stand ready to turn any overreaching to our advantage. If Congress seeks to undermine science by harassing federal agencies through bogus investigations or passing laws that tie their hands, we will aggressively call out these actions, using them as "teachable moments" to promote the essential role of science in government decision making.

We'll push the Obama administration to take action without Congress on crucial issues such as limits on global warming pollutants from power plants, taking nuclear weapons off dangerous "hair trigger" alert, and fuel economy standards to ensure that big-rig trucks and delivery vans can go farther on a gallon of gas.

And we're working now to expand our presence in cities and state capitols, where so much progress has been made in recent years. We will push for clean energy policies that support renewable energy, measures to make communities more resilient to the consequences of climate change, and local programs to increase access to healthy foods. Through our successes at the state and local level, we can help create a tipping point for action at the national level.

None of this will be easy. The election results require all of us to step up our level of effort and think even more creatively and strategically. But I can assure you of this: we stand ready to defend the important gains we have made over the past several years and will continue to move forward, finding innovative ways to effect change on the issues you and I care about.

Ken Kimmell
President
Union of Concerned Scientists

via email