Mimi Walters (R-CA), Running In District Clinton Won, Suddenly Discovers Global Warming
The adage “All politics is local” often attributed to the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill appears to be working its magic in the once-solidly Republican Orange County district of Rep. Mimi Walters.
Walters is facing a stiff challenge in November from Democrat Katie Porter, a UC Irvine law professor. So it may be no surprise that she’s trimming her political sails to catch the prevailing winds. Most recently, Walters signed on to an Aug. 22 letter from the congressional climate solutions caucus observing that the western wildfires are being “fueled by climate change” and inviting Gov. Jerry Brown to a meeting to discuss policy options.
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It also places Walters at odds with her own record on environmental issues, which is one of the worst in Congress. As my colleague Evan Halper observed this week, the League of Conservation Voters gives her a lifetime score of 4% on legislative votes, and a 3% score for 2017. That record probably won’t help Walters in November. Election forecasters have moved her district from Republican-leaning to a toss-up. Although GOP voters outnumber Democrats by nearly 8 percentage points, the district went for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. We’ve asked Walters’ Washington office to comment but haven’t heard back.
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Although Walters is a member of the bipartisan climate solutions caucus in Congress, she’s something of a latecomer — the caucus was established in 2016 and she didn’t join until last fall. Other than that, Walters’ legislative record on climate change is abysmal. According to the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard, in 2017, she voted to block an Obama-era rule requiring that the social cost of carbon be factored into reviews of major projects and in favor of delaying an ozone clean-air standard. She has advocated expanding oil drilling offshore and in Alaska, and has voted to cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and hamstring its scientific reviews. Last year, she was a co-sponsor of the “Stopping EPA Overreach Act,” which stated that nothing in five major federal environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the Endangered Species Act, “authorizes or requires the regulation of climate change or global warming.”
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http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-walters-climate-20180824-story.html