U.S. Republicans Axe Global Warming Panel
House Republicans will scrap the committee set up by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate global warming, the panel’s top Republican announced Wednesday.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) made official what many had already expected – the GOP majority will axe the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which Pelosi created in 2007.
“This hearing will be the last of the select committee,” Sensenbrenner announced.
Committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called Wednesday’s hearing to give witnesses a chance to warn of the perils of climate change before the GOP launches efforts next year to roll back the Obama administration’s climate policies.
Sensenbrenner, a vocal climate change skeptic, had pushed to keep the panel alive to probe the White House’s energy policies. But it was seen as unlikely that GOP leadership would devote resources to the panel created by Democrats at the same time that they called for scaling back government spending.
The Wisconsin Republican may still play a key role in leading investigations into climate science next year. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who’s vying for the chairmanship of the Science Committee, told POLITICO Tuesday he’d like to see Sensenbrenner lead the panel’s climate science probes.
===========================================================
For the Chop: Republicans Put Global Warming Panel Out Of Business
Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey will hold one last media spectacle at his Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming today, allowing such oracles as green activist Robert Kennedy Jr. to preach about the imminent catastrophe of climate change. Let’s hope Speaker-designate John Boehner makes it the committee’s last hurrah.
Current Speaker Nancy Pelosi created this outfit in 2007 as a way to outflank then Energy Committee Chairman John Dingell, for whom climate change is not a religion. The committee provided Mr. Markey a prominent perch from which to work closely with California’s Henry Waxman (who later deposed Mr. Dingell) on the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House and helped so many Democrats lose their seats in November.
Mr. Markey held more than 50 hearings, at which he demeaned reputable scientists, attacked oil and gas companies, and in general evangelized about the need to replace carbon energy with windmills and solar panels. With no bill-writing powers, committee Members spent $8 million or so on hearings, global “fact-finding” missions and reports of little consequence. Oh, and Mr. Markey elbowed his way into investigating the BP spill, which he used as a platform to demonize oil exploration.
h/t to The GWPF
How about a 33% across-the-board pay cut too (for starters)?
This is sounding like a witch hunt. Yes I am an outsider looking on from Australia. Some of these comments are a serious blight on your democracy, the level of your emotional intelligence and your understanding of how science must remain free of a political ideologue. This is whether you agree or disagree with the science findings.
Just remember the regret of the McCarthy era and what it did to innocent folk.
Please – don’t the make the same mistakes of your past.
The Internet is great vehicle of democracy at work. As a weapon of propaganda it can be too powerful in a majority who seek to sideline the other half and destroy it.
Blue eyes verses brown eyes. Come on – we all can do better then this.
Ross Brisbane says:
December 1, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Perhaps given that you are an outsider looking in you may not realize this, but the very thing that just got axed was more akin to the McCarthy era (as it is typically perceived) than what people in here are saying. In other words, by cutting Nancy’s pet project, we’ve moved away from demonizations that were rather common and would likely have continued.
Mark
Ding Dong the Witches and Wizards are dead.
Just does not have the same ring about it is 🙂
Great job! The EPA should go as well and a new system set up to help environmental problems without banning CO2 production. The first thing that should be done is ban the low energy light bulbs because they pollute the environment with mercury when scrapped.
Google translation: (Italian to English) Pelosi=Hairy
It’s nice to wake up to good news, and the sun is out and shining, the coffee fresh and hot. What a day!
“”Ross Brisbane says:
December 1, 2010 at 10:51 pm
This is sounding like a witch hunt. Yes I am an outsider looking on from Australia. Some of these comments are a serious blight on your democracy, the level of your emotional intelligence and your understanding of how science must remain free of a political ideologue. This is whether you agree or disagree with the science findings.””
We did not introduce the ‘political idealogue’ to climate science; we’re trying to get rid of it.
Ditto what Mark T says:
December 1, 2010 at 11:06 pm
“In other words, by cutting Nancy’s pet project, we’ve moved away from demonizations that were rather common and would likely have continued.”
These statements you refer to are of our optimism at the prospect that MAYBE we CAN get the politics out of the science. Something that Pelosi was apparently diametrically opposed to. Rather than a ‘serious blight’ on our democracy it seems more of a breath of fresh air!
We don’t need a Select Committee or an established House Committee to “investigate” anything or anyone. Just cut the Federal Budget to the point that we’re paying off the principal on our Chinese Mortgage by at least 25% per year. Oh… and zero out anything and everything we’re spending on unions, housing, education, all Congressional and Presidential perks (and cut their staffs by 50%), Obamacare, SS for anyone under 69 (that was a Very Good Year), the arts and the @ur momisugly#$#@ur momisugly Smithsonian.
Enneagram says:
December 2, 2010 at 4:58 am
Google translation: (Italian to English) Pelosi=Hairy
Yup, I checked!
I like it! The “Harry and Hairy” duo. Has a ring to it …
Since “Pelosi” is Italian for Hairy, I give you, “Down with Hairy and Harry!” Chant it loudly in public every day!
>:-)