Republicans stack warming panel with climate skeptics
 The six Republican Congressional members chosen by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to sit on a panel chosen to deliberate on policy responses to global warming have all expressed significant skepticism over the human impact on the Earth's climate, RAW STORY has found. However, House Democrats did not believe the small group would have much of an impact.
"The number of Republicans who don't believe there's a human cause to warming is shrinking faster than the ice caps," a Democratic leadership aide told RAW STORY.
House Democrats succeeded in passing legislation on March 8 to create the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming by a vote of 269 to 150, with 44 Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues. While other committees will retain legislative authority on energy and climate issue, the Select Committee will be responsible for "coordination of information on these critical issues." The Speaker has called for legislation to be completed by July 4 on energy and climate change issues.
Pelosi selected Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) to serve as the chairman of the committee, and he will be joined by eight other Democratic Members of the House. Rep. John Boehner selected six Republicans to sit on the Committee, all of whom appeared to offer significant skepticism on the human causes of climate change.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the ranking minority member of the committee, questioned the human role in the warming of the Earth's atmosphere in a statement released by his office last Saturday.
"Recent fluctuations in the Earth’s climates and temperatures have led to numerous sensational headlines describing an eminent doomsday scenario," he said. "It will be this panel’s responsibility to examine the big questions as to why, and to what extent are humans contributing to these periods of fluctuation, and how can we take steps to eliminate that impact."
Sensenbrenner is a long-time critic of global warming science. He led a Congressional delegation to the Kyoto Climate Treaty's signing conference in 1998, and called efforts to monitor the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere "immature" in a Feb. 4, 1998, hearing.
"Even basic questions about the temperature record remain unanswered, and scientists are still grappling with the discrepancy between the ground-based temperature record, which shows warming, and the satellite record, which shows a slight cooling," he explained then. "In short, what we heard at Kyoto, and have heard subsequently, is that the climate treaty is based on immature science."
Sensenbrenner has been criticized by his own Republican colleagues for his climate skepticism. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican who had sought but was denied a seat the House climate panel, joked about his warming science doubts in the Feb. 16 edition of Energy and Environment Daily.
"I'm looking forward to standing on the melting Greenland ice shelf with Jim Sensenbrenner. We may even be able to go canoeing since the water is so warm," he quipped.
Sensenbrenner wasn't alone among Republican Select Committee members in expressing his doubts about climate science.
"It will be an honor to sit on a panel that will hopefully investigate the many differing points of view and scientific findings on what is exactly affecting climate change," said Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) in a statement last week.
Walden was the only Republican member of the committee to vote in favor of the creation of the panel, with the other five voting "nay" on the measure.
It was not clear where the warming panel's Republicans intended to find opportunities to investigate the science behind global warming. The legislation creating the panel defined its "sole authority" as working to "investigate, study, make findings, and develop recommendations on policies, strategies, technologies and other innovations, intended to reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign sources of energy and achieve substantial and permanent reductions in emissions and other activities that contribute to climate change and global warming."
The Democratic Leadership aide who spoke with RAW STORY didn't think debating climate science would be included in this purview.
But House Republicans may have other opportunities to investigate climate science outside the Select Committee. An aide with the House Science and Technology Committee confirmed to RAW STORY that the body would hold more hearings on the human impact of warming. As an example, the aide pointed to a scheduled joint hearing on March 21 of the Science and Technology and Energy and Commerce Committees with former Vice President Al Gore, whose documentary An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar last month.
And ultimately, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) pointed to the primary message the House Republicans sitting on the climate panel may use to counter Democratic policy prescriptions: economics.
"We must be careful not to enact policies that will unnecessarily impose a financial burden on American families, especially those just barely getting by, or result in more American job losses to other countries with little or no benefit to the global climate," he warned.
|
