Waxman Angrily Assails G.O.P. ‘Science Deniers’ [View All]

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He opened his remarks saying he intended to speak “as bluntly as possible,” and he did not disappoint. He recalled earlier battles on environmental policy with Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, Tom DeLay and Dick Cheney. They did all they could to roll back the nation’s environmental and health laws on behalf of their corporate backers, Mr. Waxman said.

“But I have never been in a Congress where there was such an overwhelming disconnect between science and policy,” he said. “The Republicans in Congress have become the party of science deniers, and that is profoundly dangerous.”

Mr. Waxman has served in Congress since 1975.

He said that Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, the new chair of Energy and Commerce, had joined Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, in sponsoring a bill to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that heat-trapping gases endanger public health and the environment. Mr. Inhofe has repeatedly referred to climate change as a hoax perpetrated by an incestuous coterie of climate scientists unwilling to consider contrary evidence.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/waxman-angrily-assails-g-o-p-science-deniers/?hp