Some of them are ignoramuses who really don’t accept the science of climate change. Some of them know full well that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are raising the planet’s average temperature and creating other impacts, but they have their fossil fuel campaign contributors to worry about. Or they think the Environmental Protection Agency is the Green Gestapo and they are determined to rein it in (and, in their fevered dreams, demolish the agency altogether). Or (and there’s quite a lot of overlap here) they hate Barack Obama so much they’ll do anything to undermine him.
“They” are the cabal of congressional Republicans (and a few Democrats) who, whatever their actual views, behave like deniers by blocking or delaying even modest actions designed to ameliorate or adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The latest instance of their handiwork came in the House of Representatives Tuesday when they—mostly along party lines—voted on two resolutions to smash the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The CPP mandates that by 2030 existing and new power plants will have reduced CO2 emissions from their 2005 level by 32 percent.
Coming in the wake of President Obama’s speech about American leadership at the Paris climate talks, it was a perfect way for the Republicans to show the world that they can’t necessarily count on the United States when it comes dealing with the worst crisis humans have had to deal with since homo sapiens came onto the scene 100,000 years ago. The Senate has already passed a combined resolution to kill the plan. Samantha Page writes:
During the House hearing Tuesday, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), who sponsored similar resolutions, called the Clean Power Plan “extreme and unprecedented,” saying it asked too much of America’s electricity sector, especially in the context of global emissions. He also criticized the administration’s role in curbing carbon emissions. The Congressional Review Act, which authorized Tuesday’s resolutions, allows Congress to overturn executive actions. [...]
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) told ThinkProgress that the vote merely reinforced the fact that congressional Republicans have “no ideas” about how to address climate change.
“It’s almost laughable, to be honest with you. The entire world is watching what is going on in Paris,” Grijalva said. “And the congressional Republicans are here with their heads in the sand, demanding we make the same mistakes over and over.”
