Posted on 02/19/2011 9:09:19 AM PST by PROCON
Just before 2 a.m. on February 19, the war on climate science showed its grip on the U.S. House of Representatives as it voted to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Republican majority, on a mostly party-line vote of 244-179, went on record as essentially saying that it no longer wishes to have the IPCC prepare its comprehensive international climate science assessments. Transcript of floor debate follows.
To give you the flavor of how the know-nothings are in the saddle, here’s the debate on the amendment to de-fund the IPCC (my unofficial transcript).
(Excerpt) Read more at climatesciencewatch.org ...
Woo-Hoo Ping!
dont these bills need a matching senate bill and then signed by the president??? Likely hood of that?
De-funding the IPCC is one more accomplishment of the conservative agenda, it actually may pass the Senate.
That’s my understanding also. Bozo will veto it I’m sure.
Outstanding...
But then again we are talking about the Obama Administration
Well if they want the gummit to continue running they’re going to have to sign on to something. These are battles worth fighting.
Pray for America
Seems to me we just knocked the know nothing IPCC right out of the saddle. Well Done. One small group of marxist thugs down a million more groups to go. A target rich environment if I ever saw one.
Yes they do.. likely hood of passing that is “0”.. These people are doing what they were put in there to do..Trying..We can only pray that the senate will change and also the traveling president will be replaced..
Glad they named names so we know who to thank!
the only way to see it happening is as a rider on an important appropriations bill or something.
House Republican group proposes to kill U.S. funding for the IPCC – and a great deal more
****************************************************
The Republican Study Committee, which represents 165 House Republicans, issued a proposal today to cut more than $2.5 trillion from the federal budget in the next 10 years – with the aim of balancing the federal budget entirely through budget cuts in non-military programs. Buried in the RSC plan is this line item: “Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.”
Expect continuing attacks of this kind from the right-wing denialist war on climate science contingent.
Lori Montgomery at the Washington Post reported online this afternoon:
House GOP group proposes deep spending cuts over next decade
A band of conservative House Republicans said Thursday that Congress should slash more than $2.5 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade, primarily by cutting non-defense appropriations back to 2006 levels and firing 15 percent of the federal workforce. …
The [Republican Study Committee] also wants Congress to cut $80 billion from an upcoming temporary resolution that would keep the government running through September. The government is currently functioning under a temporary resolution that expires in March. …
The RSC, which represents 165 House Republicans - more than half - also offered a list of programs and subsidies they hope to eliminate, including payments to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the International Fund for Ireland, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Amtrak, the Hope VI public housing program, Title X Family Planning programs and USAID foreign aid programs.
The group wants to eliminate federal subsidies to the Legal Services Corp., which provides legal assistance to the poor, and cut off more than $360 million in annual aid to the District government and the Washington Metro system. …
The Republican Study Committee “unveiled” the Spending Reduction Act of 2011, “which begins to address the rapidly growing national debt by making substantial spending cuts immediately and throughout the next decade.” A two-page overview of the budget-cutting plan includes a long list of proposed federal program eliminations and cutbacks. Read it for yourselves.
One proposed line item would deal a radical blow to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by killing $12.5 million in annual U.S. support. I’m sure we’ll hear some more war on climate scientists rhetoric in defense of this know-nothing proposal.
Zero cuts are proposed in the super-sized U.S. military budget.
No new revenue is proposed as a means of helping to bring the budget into balance.
Presumably cooler heads on both sides of the aisle will prevail on some of these cuts, and limit the damage to the country that actually enacting them would entail. By being shielded from the full brunt of the harm that proposals such as this would do, much of the public will tend to remain ignorant of the real implications of the choice to send as their representatives to Congress members who would support such proposals. In the meantime, considerable effort will have to be expended in attempting to limit the damage.
For now the RSC types seem to have forgotten to single out for trashing the funding for the $2 billion U.S. Global Change Research Program – the nation's support for climate observing and monitoring systems, scientific research on climate and associated global environmental changes, and national climate change assessments. The impacts of human activity on planet Earth. Don’t tell them. They'll get to it, I expect.
Then we’ll see whether the White House and the non-denialists on the Hill will stand firm for climate research.
Earlier post:
House Republicans prepare to attack EPA greenhouse gas rules
From the article;
“The amendment was sponsored by second-term Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), who obviously knows nothing about climate science or the IPCC, and I expect could care less. His talking points were clearly provided by some denial machine operative and Mr. Leutkemeyer simply followed the script. “
Do not become too comfortable with these mini-victories, we must continue to fight the warming crowd even as the snow flies.
Ok, I’ve asked this in various places I have yet to get a response.
Why is the House passing laws to specifically defund these groups? They write the budget. Why can’t they just exclude the funding for these items from the spending bills??
As we saw when they passed a law specifically defunding ACORN, wasn’t it shot down as a bill of attainder??
Thanks Ernest, this news is unbelieveably great!
House Republicans prepare to attack EPA greenhouse gas rules
***************************************************
Posted on January 10, 2011 by Alexa Jay
The new Republican majority in the House is making moves in its plan to hamstring EPA regulations, particularly of greenhouse gases. EPA is currently moving forward with GHG regulations for fossil fuel-based power plants and petroleum refineries, with proposed standards to be released starting in mid-2011 and final standards in 2012. The GOP is pursuing multiple lines of attack in its attempt to stall EPA action, with strategies taking shape under a new crop of climate ‘skeptic’ committee chairmen to de-fund implementation of regulations, conduct aggressive oversight, and overturn rules through the Congressional Review Act. Here’s a look at the new chairmen and their roles in the Republican attack on EPA.
Appropriations
Hal Rogers (R-Kentucky) will lead the powerful House Appropriations Committee in the new Congress. He will undoubtedly assume the mantle of Republican posturing on cutting spending, and has pledged to increase oversight of federal agencies.
The appropriations process could be used as a tool to hinder EPA regulation of GHGs and other pollutants, simply by stipulating that funds won’t be allocated for a given program. If Rep. Rogers decides to crusade against climate regulation and research, the U.S. Global Change Research Program and renewable energy spending could also come under fire.
Rep. Rogers has previously railed against the EPA, insisting that GHG regulation would devastate Kentucky’s coal industry.
The Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, which has first-crack jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency budget before the full committee takes it up, will be chaired by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). Simpson promises to be an anti-EPA attack dog as subcommittee chair. His website has this:
“As Chairman, Congressman Simpson will be tasked with reducing spending levels that have grown out of control in recent years under Democrat control. In particular, he has his eyes set on the EPA, which has seen exponential growth in its budget since President Obama came into office. ‘The EPA is the scariest agency in the federal government, an agency run amok,’ Simpson said. ‘Its bloated budget has allowed it to drastically expand its regulatory authority in a way that is hurting our economy and pushing an unwelcomed government further into the lives of Idahoans. As Chairman of this subcommittee, I look forward to bringing some common sense to the EPA and some certainty for our nation’s job creators.’”
Science, Space, and Technology
The incoming chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee is Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas), an 87-year-old former Democrat, a proponent of further investigation into ‘Climategate,’ and a major recipient of oil money.
Politico noted: “Hall told POLITICO in a recent interview he’s not a climate skeptic…But he said he does want to question all sides of the issue, including the scientists at the center of the so-called ‘Climategate’ controversy…He said at a hearing last month that the documents exposed a ‘dishonest undercurrent’ within the scientific community.”
Hall has received a zero-percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters every year since 2005.
Hall is less vocal about his ‘skepticism’ than other Republican members of the committee, including Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (California), Jim Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin) , and Paul Broun (Georgia).
Rep. Sensenbrenner will serve as Vice Chair of the Committee. Sensenbrenner is an anti-science demagogue who has accused climate scientists of fascism and fraud.
Rep. Broun will be Chairman of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee. Broun is a right-wing ideologue who, during debate on the Waxman-Markey climate legislation in 2009, declared that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.”
House Oversight & Government Reform
Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has made a name for himself heckling the Obama administration. He’ll now have his own staging ground for hassling
In a September 22, 2010, staff report from the then-minority on the Committee, Issa complained that the Democratic committee leadership failed to properly investigate ‘Climategate’ and EPA’s alleged suppression of dissent in pushing through its Endangerment Finding for greenhouse gases. Although several outlets reported recently on his eagerness to subpoena climate scientists, he subsequently downplayed the prospect. The Hill quoted Issa on dealing with climate science overall: “A lot of it will, rightfully so, fall to the Science Committee…We are not a committee of jurisdiction on the science of it. We are about waste, fraud and abuse, and organization and cost…We haven’t made any plans on climate change because, quite frankly, the lead committee will look at what part they will take.”
However, he will likely focus on reviewing the impacts of regulations on industry. Last month, Issa sent letters to more than 150 business groups requesting “a list of existing and proposed regulations that would harm job growth” to determine what the corporate sector would like Congress to do to cut back on government regulation.
House Energy & Commerce
Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, has a reputation as a comparatively moderate Republican in the context of a very conservative party caucus, and faced fierce competition for the position from more hard-line colleagues. In his bid for the chairmanship, Upton sought to bolster his anti-regulatory credentials, and he has now fallen in line with the party position by pledging to challenge EPA regulation of GHGs under the Clean Air Act. Upton told Fox News Sunday “we are not going to let this administration regulate what they’ve been unable to legislate,” and referred to potential use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to take an up or down, filibuster proof vote on an administrative rule within sixty legislative days from the publishing date.
However, as Environment & Energy Daily reported (subs. required), because “the core EPA findings and rules related to carbon mitigation were published more than 60 continuous legislative days ago,” it’s not possible to overturn them under the CRA. However, other rules published after July 30, 2010, could still be vulnerable.
Upton has chosen to split the Energy and Environment Subcommittee into two panels. John Shimkus of Illinois will chair Environment and Economy, and Ed Whitfield of Kentucky will chair Energy and Power. According to E&E News PM (subs. required), “the environment panel will have jurisdiction over waste and recycling, the Clean Water Act, Superfund, nuclear waste and chemical issues,” and the energy panel “will cover energy issues as well as the Clean Air Act.”
Rep. Shimkus is solidly in the global warming denier camp, once citing Genesis to support his belief that humans can’t influence the climate system.
Legislative Threat
On the first day of the new Congress, House Republicans put three bills on the table that would block different aspects of EPA greenhouse gas regulation. The most extreme is a bill from Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee that would reverse the 2007 Supreme Court ruling that GHGs are subject to the Clean Air Act. If such a bill were to pass the House, it would face much more difficulty in the Democrat-controlled Senate and a likely veto from President Obama.
Fact sheet on EPA GHG regulation
Previous CSW posts:
‘Climategate’ lives on in federal court challenges to EPA greenhouse gas regulations
EPA denies all petitions for reconsideration of its Endangerment Finding on greenhouse gases
Murkowski resolution a rejection of broad scientific understanding of climate change threat
House Science Committee: one last ‘rational’ climate science hearing?
Also see:
Climate Zombies Now Run The House
The Climate Zombie Caucus Of The 112th Congress
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.