“It is the
sense of Congress that — (1) climate change is real; and (2) human activity
contributes to climate change.” That was part of an amendment offered by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) to S.1, legislation
that will require the Obama administration to allow construction of the Keystone
XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S.
It drew the
support of 59 senators, including 15 Republicans: Senators Lamar Alexander
(R-Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Bob Corker
(R-Tenn.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah),
Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski
(R-Alaska), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Bob Portman (R-Ohio), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), and
Pat Toomey (R-Penn.). Hoeven voted against his own amendment, which fell one vote
short of the 60 votes needed for passage.
Right
afterward, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) offered a second amendment that Democrats preferred. It read: “It is the sense of
Congress that — (1) climate change is real; and (2) human activity
significantly contributes to climate.”
That version of
the amendment only drew the support of 50 senators, including just 5
Republicans: Alexander, Ayotte, Collins, Graham, and Kirk. This time it was 10
votes short.
Yet, the two
votes — just 21 minutes apart — signify very interesting political positioning
by Republicans on the issue.
The position
for at least 10 of the Senate Republicans — Corker, Flake, Hatch, Heller,
McCain, Murkowski, Paul, Portman, Rounds, and Toomey — is that climate change
is real, human activity contributes to it, but it is not significant enough to
warrant the current regime of regulations by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to limit carbon emissions.
Or to justify a
restrictive climate deal struck between the Obama administration and China —
where the U.S. agrees to limit energy consumption long before the Chinese
would.
Are Republicans
attempting to thread the needle on climate change? Are they succeeding? Politico ran a story on the series of votes
entitled, “Republicans outfox Democrats on climate
votes.”
But perhaps a better question is why Republicans are even bothering with
these symbolic votes?
A Gallup survey before the 2014 midterm
elections found that just 19 percent of
Republicans found climate change to be either an extremely or very important
priority, compared with 61 percent of Democrats.
In the
meantime, 91 percent of Republicans and 86 percent of Democrats agreed that the
economy was a top priority, and 83 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of
Democrats said the availability of good jobs was.
Point is,
almost all voters are concerned about improving the economy and creating jobs,
and comparatively far fewer are worried about climate change. Regardless of the
degree to which human activities impact the climate, that is a pretty powerful
political message.
Which is,
posturing on climate change won’t make a lick of difference electorally if the
economy does not improve. So, get to work.
Robert Romano
is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.
Comments
Congress
has got to stop agreeing to Democrat bullshit, just to pass a Bill. It catches them later on and costs us
$trillions. These are not smart guys. We
can’t begin to get the economy working until the man-made climate change scam
is thoroughly and officially denounced, debunked, rejected and defunded. The damage it has done is more than
sufficient to prompt us to withdraw from the UN and close it.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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