The global warming debate is heating up in Congress – especially among majority Republicans. Moderate GOP leaders, the lynchpins to progress on the subject, are edging Congress toward energy reform, but still face some large hurdles in their own constituency.
Two House committee chairmen, Joe Barton and Sherwood Boehlert, have gone public with their climate-change feud. Boehlert, from New York, has strongly criticized Barton, from Texas, for initiating an investigation into the three scientists who in 1998 sounded an alarm about global warming. Barton’s beef? He thinks the global warming statistics are a load of hot air.
By ignoring the myriad of studies on climate change, Barton is barking up the wrong deciduous.
Boehlert, on the other hand, brings a breath of fresh air to the issue. The head of the House Science Committee refuses to remain rooted in the White House’s faulty environmental ideology. Breaking from party ranks, Boehlert has helped energy reform to move forward.
Other Republicans have followed suit. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, co-chair of the House Climate Change Caucus, helped introduce the Climate Stewardship Act, which demanded extensive rollbacks on greenhouse gas emissions by 2010. Half of the 20 co-sponsors of the House version of the reform bill were Republicans.
Minor issues hung up the debate, however, and the act failed in the House and Senate. The House’s current bill is glaringly short of genuine climate-change solutions. It takes only minor steps toward energy independence, and comes in a distant second behind the Senate’s more comprehensive and bipartisan effort. The Senate bill, while not an ultimate overhaul, provides targeted and worthwhile amendments, with incentives aimed at conservation, renewable energy and tax breaks for fuel efficiency.
Divisive behavior like Barton’s hinders legitimate reform. The United States has the technology to wean itself off of its oil lifeline. Setting higher fuel-efficiency standards, developing alternative fuels and reducing greenhouse gases are all important and realistic goals.
With the White House opposed to significant reform, these goals will be harder to reach. Reasonable compromise, led by prominent Republican lawmakers, is likely the only way to arrive at climate-change remedies in this Congress.
Blowing smoke and sticking to party lines won’t protect our planet’s future. Moderate and educated discussions on climate change hold the best hope for solutions on this hot issue.
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