Republicans Turn “Climate Change” Votes Around On Democrats

by William Teach | January 22, 2015 8:01 am

The U.S. Senate voted on three “climate change” amendments to the Keystone XL legislation Wednesday, two of them going down in defeat[1]. But, what of the third?

(Politico[2]) Senate Republicans head-faked Democrats on climate change Wednesday, agreeing in a floor vote that the planet’s climate was changing, but blocking language that would have blamed human activity.

In a complicated maneuver that was the first politically perilous test for Senate Republicans, the new majority party split up the votes that Democrats had hoped would force the GOP into an awkward roll call on whether they believed in the science behind climate change — just hours after President Barack Obama slammed Republicans in his State of the Union address for dodging the issue.

But Republicans made an eleventh-hour change in strategy on two Democratic attempts to divide them — with Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, their most vocal denier of humans’ effect on the climate, joining a leading liberal in a symbolic vote on whether global warming is “real and not a hoax.”

“There is archeological evidence of that, there’s Biblical evidence of” the climate changing, Inhofe, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works panel, said on the floor before signing onto a proposal from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that stopped short of linking climate change to human activities, such as burning of fuels like coal and oil.

I was wondering if that was the reason that S.Amend. 29[3] to S. 1[4], the Keystone XL bill, passed 98-1.

I am proud to have stood with @SenWhitehouse[5] as a co-sponsor of amendment #29 to S.1 on the Keystone XL pipeline.

— Jim Inhofe (@JimInhofe) January 21, 2015[6]

Climate change is real, and it is not a hoax. How arrogant is it for people to say that man can do something about changing the climate?

— Jim Inhofe (@JimInhofe) January 21, 2015[7]

The Washington Post[8] was less than amused, calling this “a nifty, if insincere, bit of politics.” They didn’t like Democrats getting mugged on the subject after Democrats tried to force the issue, because they think fossil fuels are Bad.

And then all the Senate Democrats jumped in their fossil fueled vehicles to head home after the session.

Greens responded to the stunning turn by challenging Republicans to follow up on their members’ new-found climate conversion with a substantive plan to act on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

“But what’s their plan to do something about it?” the Natural Resources Defense Council’s associate government affairs director, Franz Matzner, said in a statement. “Republican leaders still are trying to block any and all solutions, and putting our children’s health at risk.”

Plan? We don’t need no stinkin’ plan. Not to deal with a issue that is primarily caused by natural forces. But, hey, since quite a bit of the perceived warming is due to the Urban Heat Island Effect, I say we tear down all the big cities, which are pretty much Democrat strongholds, and turn them into nature reserves, in which Democrats will be allowed to live and roam free, since Dems seem to want to turn back the clock thousands of years.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove[9]. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach[10].

Endnotes:
  1. two of them going down in defeat: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/21/keystone-debate-senate-to-vote-on-dueling-climate-change-amendments/
  2. Politico: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/senate-climate-change-vote-114463.html
  3. S.Amend. 29: https://www.congress.gov/amendment/114th-congress/senate-amendment/29
  4. S. 1: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1
  5. @SenWhitehouse: https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
  6. January 21, 2015: https://twitter.com/JimInhofe/status/558025798490546176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
  7. January 21, 2015: https://twitter.com/JimInhofe/status/558033392944840704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
  8. The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/01/21/jim-inhofe-flips-the-script-on-democratic-climate-change-is-a-hoax-vote/
  9. Pirate’s Cove: http://www.thepiratescove.us/
  10. @WilliamTeach: http://twitter.com/WilliamTeach

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/climate-change/republicans-turn-climate-change-votes-around-democrats/