Severe storms are about to hit the Bluegrass. Take it away Andy:
This looks like it’s going to be bad, and if you haven’t noticed, we’re having some freaky weather this week. Yesterday, temperatures were in the 30s. This afternoon, it approached 80.
You would think that everybody is knows climate change is causing these weather extremes. Hell, we just went through tornado watches and warnings a couple of days ago in Jefferson County, and this time, it looks like the entire state is going to have its ass kicked.
So, let’s reflect on what our GOP congressional delegation says about the scientific fact (Starting with this from Business Insider in 2019):
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday he believes in human-caused climate change but that the progressive Green New Deal wasn’t the way to tackle the problem.
“I do. The question is how do you address it. … The way to do this consistent with American values and American capitalism is through technology and innovation … not to shut down your economy, throw people out of work,” McConnell told reporters ahead of a vote on the Green New Deal.
Rand Paul (2015):
Rand Paul has already taken a half-dozen different positions on climate change, all before he marked his first day officially campaigning for president.
In January, he voted yes on a Republican-sponsored resolution that “human activity contributes to climate change.” But he doesn’t want to say human activity significantly contributes, since he voted no on a Democratic resolution that same day. A year ago, the Kentucky senator was less sure of climate change science. “Anybody who’s ever studied any geology knows that over periods of time, long periods of time, that the climate changes, mmkay?” he said in April 2014. “I’m not sure anybody exactly knows why.” He seemed to dispute that scientists who spend their lives studying this know what they’re doing. “We have real data [for] about 100 years,” he said. “So somebody tell me what 100 years data is in an Earth that is 4.6 billion years old? My guess is that the conclusions you make from that are not conclusive.”
It’s possible he has brushed up on his fifth-grade science since last year, which would suggest Paul’s ideas of how to respond likewise could have matured. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Just last month, Paul voted against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s resolution stating that Congress has a responsibility to cut pollution behind manmade climate change.
Except this vote contradicts what an earlier Paul argued. He suggested in a November interview with HBO’s Bill Maher that he was open, in some form, to limited regulation. “All I ask for is that the solution has to be a balanced solution and that you have to account for jobs and jobs lost by regulation,” he said, adding the caveat that he doesn’t think “shutting down dramatically one form of energy is a good idea for an economy.” He then likened climate change science to a “religiosity.”
On Climate Change:
In a debate during an unsuccessful campaign for Governor of Kentucky, he said, “I do not believe in global warming. I’m the one person whose business and livelihood depends on Mother Nature, so I understand weather patterns. We’ve had a very severe winter this year with 12-inch snows, so there is no global warming.”
On his website he comments in regards to the Green New Deal, “Rolling out a silver tray of radical environmental and social reforms distracts from the laundry list of pressing issues at hand that we have yet to address.”
He also has a lifetime LCV voting score of 4% which includes voting against blocking the Trump administration from shortcutting Mercury emissions standards for power plants.
James Comer and Friends
Over his career, James Comer has received $212,890 in funding from the crop production industry and $32,600 from the oil and gas industry. His environmental voting record is shared by fellow Kentucky Representatives Brett Guthrie, Harold Rogers, and Garland Barr, who all have LCV environmental voting scores under 10%.
Lawmakers will soon return to Washington D.C. looking to wrap up their policy priorities before the November election. While the 118th Congress has had its share of dysfunction, it has also delivered notable legislative victories, especially in the energy innovation space.
One congressman who has been leading in this area is Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Conservative Climate Caucus, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Guthrie recently sat down with co-founder and vice president of C3 Solutions John Hart on Right Voices to talk about his work on conservative energy and climate solutions.
Guthrie represents one of the more conservative districts in the nation. He joined the Conservative Climate Caucus after seeing the consequences of top-down climate policy in Europe. “I care deeply about environmental stewardship,” Guthrie says. “We don’t need to cede this space to the liberals because they’re wrong on climate change in a lot of ways.”
Referring to extreme predictions, such as Greta Thunberg’s 2018 claim that climate change would wipe out humanity by 2023, the Congressman noted, “I’ve seen how allowing the misrepresentation of what’s going on in climate change has hurt Europe.” In his time as a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Guthrie says he has seen firsthand how Europe’s shift away from domestic fossil fuel production emboldened Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and funded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
So, I read Thunberg’s claim. Obviously, Guthrie doesn’t know how to read. Here’s what happened.
On June 21, 2018, Greta Thunberg tweeted that “climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.”
Any literate person will tell you that means that we have five years to do something, otherwise climate change will lead to things like, oh, I don’t know, killer tornadoes, uncontrollable wildfires, devastating hurricanes. Plus, in 2018 Thunberg was 15, so Guthrie thinks he had a gotcha moment by dunking on a little girl, the perfect foil for his manly manness.
Thomas Massie: (From The Hill in 2019)
Former Secretary of State John Kerry shared a heated exchange with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) over Kerry’s college degree and his credentials on climate change during a hearing on Tuesday.
The contentious back and forth came as Kerry served as a witness for a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on combatting climate change.
During the hearing, Massie, who holds two engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, asked Kerry about his “science degree” from Yale University, where the former senator graduated from with a bachelor of arts in political science.
“How do you get a bachelor of arts in a science?” the Kentucky Republican asked Kerry.
“Well, it’s liberal arts education and degree, it’s a bachelor,” Kerry said.
“OK, so it’s not really science,” Massie said. “So I think it’s somewhat appropriate that someone with a pseudoscience degree is here pushing pseudoscience in front of our committee today.”
“Are you serious? I mean, this is really a serious happening here?” Kerry asked in apparent disbelief. “You know what? It is serious. You’re calling the president’s Cabinet a kangaroo court, is that serious?” Massie continued.
“I’m not calling his Cabinet a kangaroo court, I’m calling this committee he’s putting together a kangaroo committee,” Kerry said.
“Are you saying he doesn’t have educated adults there now?” Massie asked.
“I don’t know who it has yet, because it’s secret,” Kerry responded.
I think the best response to someone like Massie should come from a more intelligent character:
Hal Rogers:
- 06/26/2009: Voted NO on enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution
- 06/26/2000: Voted NO on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol
- 01/09/2009: Bar greenhouse gases from Clean Air Act rules
- 04/07/2011: Voted YES on barring EPA from regulating greenhouse gases
Andy Barr:
From Spectrum News:
When it comes to climate change, Representative Andy Barr remains non-committal.
The Republican from Lexington said, “Some say the science is settled, that’s not true. There are scientists who dispute the level of warming, the extent to which humans are contributing to that.”
However, Barr is passionate when it comes to alternative energy technology. “To the extent that there are concerns about global warming, or climate change, our answer, our solution to that should always be unleashing the power of innovation, or science and technology, making sure we get the best and brightest on the question.”
He’s also interested in alternative uses for coal, explaining “A lot of people don’t understand some of the innovations that are happening in the coal industry.” Barr added, “For example, to manufacture coal, not use it for combustion and energy production, but to actually use coal for manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, for aerospace, for auto manufacturing.”
So, folks throughout the state, when the tornadoes hit and wipe out everything you own and leave you in despair, these are the guys you’re counting on to serve your interests. … Which they won’t.
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