Boehner and climate change

Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., along with 21 members of Congress sent a letter this week to Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, requesting a debate on climate change. The letter is available in PDF form here. The lawmakers who signed the letter are Reps. Henry A. Waxman, Bobby L. Rush, Chris Van Hollen, Doris O. Matsui, Jared Huffman, Earl Blumenauer, Rush Holt, Raul M. Grijalva, Peter DeFazio, Jim Moran, Barbara Lee, Steve Cohen, John Garamendi, Donna F. Edwards, Ben Ray Lujan, Peter Welch, Paul D. Tonko, Lois Capps, Hank Johnson, Carolyn B. Maloney, Keith Ellison and Adam Schiff.

Of course, given Boehner campaign contribution interests, don’t expect the speaker to be baited into holding a debate. Based on data from Open Secrets, I calculated that Boehner received at least $1.2 million from oil and gas and other related energies from 2011 to 2012, and according to MapLight, a nonpartisan research organization, that figure could be higher. Conversely, the lawmakers who sent the letter to Boehner received 77 percent less money from carbon polluting industries than representatives who did not sign the letter.

As this chart shows, the non-green energy sector is Boehner’s fourth largest contributor, just behind “miscellaneous,” which could just as well include other cardon-related industries:

Picture 1

Credit: Open Secrets

The Obama Administration has been working on a plan to address climate change that is largely geared toward energy efficiency and renewable resources, which Boehner, to no one’s surprise, has called “absolutely crazy:”

Why would you want to increase the cost of energy and kill more American jobs at a time when the American people are still asking where are the jobs? Clear enough?

Notwithstanding what he sees as the economics of energy reform, Boehner has long ridiculed the notion that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is harmful to the environment, ridiculously citing cow farts as an example, and well, our own respiration:

Here he is in 2009:

The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know when they do what they do you’ve got more carbon dioxide.

It’s clear we’ve had change in our climate. The question is how much does man have to do with it and what is the proper way to deal with this? We can’t do it alone as one nation.

At least he admits that some type of climate change is happening, although he has been refuted many times over (Here and here, to name a couple examples) for his stance on the damage carbon dioxide is causing to the environment. As the letter to Boehner suggests, the Republican strategy on climate change seems to be, like most other issues of import, to do nothing and hope the problem goes away, meanwhile collecting their big checks from energy interests.

Here is a portion of the letter sent to Boehner:

The Safe Climate Caucus is comprised of 25 members of the House who have made a commitment to talk every single day on the House floor that we are in session about the urgent need to address climate change. Every day, we have given speeches on topics relating to climate change, including the importance of preparing communities to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events, the potential for clean energy technologies, and the threats of rising temperatures across the country.

But despite our continued and ongoing efforts to speak out on this issue on the House floor, no Republican member of the House has shown up to explain why House Republicans refuse to accept the views of every scientific institution or to justify their inaction to future generations.

Like evolution, the best approach the GOP seems to be able to come up with is to put their fingers in their ears and hope the scientific community and people who care about the long-term effects of climate change will simply go away, which is a good reason why, if the Republican Party itself doesn’t evolve and step into the 20th century — much less the 21st — the Grand Old Party might turn into the Grand Dead Party and may not even exist in 30 years as smarter, more conscientious voters come of age.

Enhanced by Zemanta