Republican leaders have begun gathering evidence for sweeping investigations of US President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda, from climate science to the BP oil spill if, as expected, they take control of the US House of Representatives in today’s midterm elections.
The new US Congress will not be installed until January, but Democrats and environmental organizations say they are braced for multiple, aggressive investigations from the incoming Republican majority.
Republican leaders have also raised the possibility of disbanding the Global Warming Committee in Congress, established by the Democratic Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
“We are already getting posturing from some of the potential committee chairs that they will turn their committees into investigating committees,” said Kate Gordon, who oversees energy policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “I think there is a potential for the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and the entire administration to be called into hearing after hearing after hearing.”
Staff working for Darrell Issa, the Republican poised to head the powerful House Oversight and Investigation Committee, have already contacted a watchdog group that is suing the Obama administration for e-mails and memos related to the BP spill.
Issa and other Republican leaders have also said they are looking for ways to revisit last year’s climate science controversy, sparked by hacked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England.
Jeff Ruch, the director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said his organization had been contacted by Issa’s staff looking into charges that the Obama administration knowingly played down estimates of the oil spill.
He expected a far more aggressive investigation than any of those seen so far.
“They won’t pull punches and will put people under oath and will pursue it until they get something,” Ruch said. “They will be looking for heads, not just the facts.”
The zeal is fueled by the rise of “Tea Party” candidates for whom climate change denial verges on an article of faith.
“I think a clear majority does not accept human causality in climate change. It’s definitely not within the orthodoxy of conservatism as presented by Sarah Palin and folks like her,” Bob Inglis, a Republican member of the House Science and Technology Committee who lost to a Tea Party candidate, told National Public Radio.
A Pew Research Center poll last week showed 16 percent of Republicans say the Earth is warming because of human activity, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.
Tea Party candidates also tend to be fiercely opposed to government regulation. That combination — libertarian and anti-climate science — puts the EPA at the top of a Republican hitlist that seeks to limit the authority of the agency. Already, Republican leaders have demanded the EPA chief, Lisa Jackson, justify the potential cost to industry or employment of dozens of pollution controls.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was