Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 04/06/2011 10:43:40 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
House Dem: Climate change bigger health threat than AIDS, malaria By Andrew Restuccia - 04/06/11 12:25 PM ET
Just hours before a vote Wednesday on a GOP plan to block Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) called climate change a bigger public health threat than AIDS, malaria and pandemic flu.
Capps and several other liberal Democrats spoke out Wednesday morning in opposition to the legislation, authored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
The lawmakers, who were joined by officials from the American Lung Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Upton bill would harm public health.
Capps pointed to a 2009 article in The Lancet, a medical journal, that said climate change could be the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”
“That makes climate change a bigger public health problem than AIDS, than malaria, than pandemic flu,” Capps said. “That’s why we need to take steps to address this cause behind this growing public health problem.”
Later, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) blasted the Upton bill as a “move by Republicans to reject science.”
Democrats intend to force a vote on an amendment calling on the House to accept a scientific finding by the EPA that climate change affects public health. Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee offered a similar amendment during the panel’s consideration of the bill.
The last-minute push to oppose the bill is part of a broader effort by some Democrats and environmental and public health groups to cast Republicans as opponents of public health protections and cohorts of industry.
But Republicans argue that EPA climate regulations will burden the economy and many in the GOP take issue with the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring and it is caused in large part by human activity.
Despite the Democrats’ opposition, the Upton legislation is expected to easily pass the House later Wednesday. But the bill faces major hurdles in the Senate.
Companion legislation has been offered as an amendment to Senate small business legislation by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Senate is expected to take up the amendment and three alternative amendments offered by Democrats that would limit rather than eliminate EPA’s climate authority later Wednesday
The Upton bill has some support from Democrats. Reps. Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Collin Peterson (Minn.) and Dan Boren (Okla.) are all co-sponsors of the bill. More Democrats are expected to vote in favor of the legislation, but just how many is unclear.
That Lois...all that warm air must have killed her brain cells. Or maybe it was something else, I hear that alcohol is flammable.
AIDS is easily preventable, volcanic eruptions and solar flares, not so much.
consensus= science
war= peace
Liberals are liars.
Who now owns the American H,.A.R.P.? China has one, Russia has one, but who owns’ ours?
These people are evil AND insane.
Lois, just shut up.
We have to act now before it’s too late.
This is great news, since nobody I have ever personally known in my entire life has had aids or malaria.
Per usual... using the rhetorical device of equivocation to try to deceive us.
“Climate Change”... of course the climate changes. “CAPITALISM-CAUSED Climate Change” is what they really mean, but they can’t be honest about it.
Also, this whole “republicans/conservatives/Christians reject science” BS is just that.
“Science” is the method of examination of our world.
Their “science” is simply a propaganda device.
“If you don’t buy what we’re trying to sell, you’re dumb.”
This has been a commonly used tactic of the left for decades.
“Union of Concerned Scientists”
This is not organization FOR science. It is an organization of Marxists who happen to work or worked in some scientific profession. The only thing they are “concerned” about is exposing policies affecting science to their political agendas.
Senate Dems reject attacks on EPA climate efforts
Global Warming on Free Republic
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