After ignoring and
obstructing action on climate change for over 30 years, the House GOP are planning a
major meeting on climate change for Sept. 18. They have invited leaders of 13 federal agencies to testify. It will be the first time since President Obama unveiled his climate action plan in June that administration officials will testify on Capitol Hill about the agenda. Those invited include leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency; the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, State, and Transportation; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Commerce Department; NASA; the U.S. Agency for International Development; the Export-Import Bank; and the White House Office of Science and Technology.
In the letters, Whitfield asks nine questions about how each agency devotes its time, money, and resources to climate-change policies and requests each official to include answers in his or her written testimony at the hearing. The subcommittee had asked the agencies to respond by Wednesday about who will testify. By press time Wednesday evening, only the Defense Department had confirmed it will provide a witness, although a Pentagon spokesperson was not able to provide the name. The subcommittee expects to confirm more witnesses in the coming days.
[...]
The hearing, entitled "The Obama Administration's Climate Change Policies and Activities," will touch on the science underpinning global climate change. A draft of a major United Nations report leaked to Reuters earlier this week showed that the panel of scientific experts writing the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is at least 95 percent certain that human activity—primarily burning of fossil fuels—is the biggest cause of global warming since the 1950s. The IPCC is the primary guide countries use when deciding how to confront climate change.
Amazing news but difficult to know what the House GOP is trying to accomplish with this meeting considering according to
Think Progress/Climate the GOP is in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry which has contributed to their sellout stance on climate change.
Almost 55 percent — 128 members — of the current Republican caucus in the House of Representatives deny the basic tenets of climate science. 65 percent (30 members) of the Senate Republican caucus also deny climate change. What this means is that they have made public statements indicating that they question or reject that climate change is real, is happening, and is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels.
So will we have to wait until September to find out if the GOP will continue to try to misinform and obstruct on climate change action? Will they finally give in to the reality that is all around us?
I'd like to be a witness if their base ever recognizes that they have been lied to and manipulated on the greatest crisis the human species has ever faced.