GOP Senators on Environment Committee Hit All-Time Low, Third-Graders Have More Maturity

Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet at 1:59 PM on November 4, 2009.

Keeping in step with the rest of the Party of No, this week 6 of the 7 Republicans on the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee are refusing to show up in a desperate attempt to stall action on the climate and clean energy bill.

Reminder me again why these people are paid public servants?

Their apparent gripe is that they want EPA to do more extensive modeling runs on the proposed legislation. But really, what they want is to make sure we never have a viable climate bill and most certainly not before Copenhagen.

Of course, the EPA has already done modeling on all of this -- 90 percent is the same as the House bill from last Spring. The Washington Post reported that the data was analyzed closely by EPA, the Congressional Budget Office, the Energy Information Administration and many NGOs. "Indeed, EPA Associate Administrator David McIntosh said Tuesday that the differences wouldn't even show up in the agency's computer modeling, leaving little reason to conduct a completely new analysis before committee work commences," the Washington Post reported.

So, their stunt is pure bogus and their motivation is equally sad. Noreen Nielson, Director for Energy Communications at Progressive Media writes:

Perhaps it has something to do with the $3,507,321 the seven minority members of the EPW Committee have received from Big Oil, along with millions more from utilities, mining and the national resource sector. This is in addition to the billions Big Oil has spent on lobbying, astroturfing and smear campaigns. Exxon Mobil alone spent $7.2 million on lobbying in the last quarter -- more than the total of the entire alternative energy sector.

Just like on health care, the Republicans have no solutions, just obstructionist ploys. Passing comprehensive legislation is hard enough, having to do that with a bunch of elected officials who are acting like they're in a fight on the playground is ridiculous. Time for the GOP to grow up or get out of the game.

Tagged as: global warming, climate change, climate bill, waxman markey, kerry boxer

Tara Lohan is a senior editor at AlterNet.