Can a New Bill on Climate Legislation Get Things Back on Track and Counter Rising Attacks Against Science?

This story was written by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Brad Johnson, Zaid Jilani, and Alex Seitz-Wald.

As global temperatures reach record highs, freak weather continues to leave destruction in its wake. Heatwaves bake Australia and Singapore. After the billion-dollar losses from the series of "Snowmageddon" storms depressed the U.S. economy, a new "meteorological bomb exploded" over New York and New England last week. Fueled by "very warm sea surface temperatures," the extreme storm Xynthia pushed record heat and killer winds through western Europe. Every ice front in southern Antarctica is retreating. Meanwhile, politicians in Washington attempting to craft climate and clean energy legislation are weathering a political storm. Industrial polluters fuel a relentless assault on the legitimacy of climate science and lobby to prevent the Obama administration from taking away lucrative subsidies. Right-wing pundits crow that public understanding of the scientific consensus on manmade global warming is declining. And the mainstream press reports on the propaganda campaigns to discredit scientists as a "climate-change debate," as if physical reality were something decided by the poll results. Meanwhile, China has unveiled its 10-year plan to boost renewable energy technology, gas prices are rising, and experts wonder if America is even still in the running in the clean-energy race.

THE WAR ON SCIENCE: As the Senate is mired by inaction, the Obama administration is proceeding to slowly phase in rules to limit carbon pollution, based on a long-delayed endangerment finding for greenhouse gases by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The scientific finding -- the eventual result of a petition in 2001 that led to a Supreme Court mandate in 2007 -- is now under attack by most Republican and some Democratic lawmakers, several Republican state attorneys general, and top industrial lobbying groups. Other than by rewriting the Clean Air Act -- the "Dirty Air Act" effort led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and several House members -- the only way to overturn an endangerment finding is to dispute the underlying science. So Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) claimed that global warming is based on "unreliable, unverifiable and doctored" science. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) accused the world's climate scientists of "data manipulation" and "suppression of dissent." The South Dakota legislature has ruled that climate science is "prejudiced" by "political and philosophical viewpoints," and public schools should teach the "debate." Calling global warming "the new religion to replace Communism," Utah state Republicans accused climate scientists of a "conspiracy" to "manipulate global temperature data," asking the EPA to "immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies." This last-ditch attempt to block clean energy reform by accusing scientists of a global conspiracy to defraud oil companies would be risible if not for the effectiveness of this campaign to swiftboat science. However, as former Vice President Al Gore wrote in the New York Times this weekend, "We can't wish away climate change."

'THE GREEN ECONOMY IS COMING': Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has emerged as the unlikely green leader in the Senate, working with Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on comprehensive climate legislation. Graham's behind-the-scenes negotiations to craft a political compromise are perhaps less impressive than his strong language. Echoing Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Van Jones, in November Graham called for the United States to "lead the world rather than follow the world on carbon pollution" because "the green economy is coming." When conservative Democratic senators like Ben Nelson (NE) and Mary Landrieu (LA) proposed dropping efforts to limit carbon pollution and instead pass only an energy-subsidies bill, Graham lashed out, saying. "[I]f the approach is to try to pass some half-assed energy bill and say that is moving the ball down the road, forget it with me." Speaking with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman last week, Graham recognized that, by arguing that climate change is a hoax, Republicans "are putting at risk" the "party's future with younger people," who overwhelmingly accept the scientific consensus on climate change. Graham's clear message is matched by few others in Congress, though leaders like Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) have emerged to fight against the dependence on oil money, the "senseless debate," and "insider baseball crap" that have prevented the Senate from taking action.