If you had any remaining doubt that the Republican Party has become the party of science denial, today’s vote in the House should settle the matter for good: House GOP rejects amendments that say climate change is real.

Committee ranking Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) offered an amendment Tuesday that called on Congress to agree that climate change is occurring. The amendment failed on a party-line vote of 20-31. No Republicans voted for the amendment.

The amendment says that “Congress accepts the scientific finding of the Environmental Protection Agency that ‘warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.’”

“This finding is so obviously correct that there should be no need to offer the amendment,” Waxman said.

Read the Waxman amendment carefully; it makes no statement about whether climate change is the result of human activity, or is a natural phenomenon. In fact, the amendment makes no statement about the cause at all. It simply states the truth about the conclusions reached by the vast majority of scientists in many fields of study: that the Earth’s climate is warming, markedly and measurably.

This isn’t even close to being a controversial conclusion among scientists; even most “skeptics” will agree that the climate is warming (although they typically deny humans are responsible). The scientific research is voluminous and convincing, on any level.

But the Grand Old Anti-Science Party thinks they can deny it away. Today, Republicans actually voted en masse against reality.

Absolutely pathetic.

(h/t: Phil Plait.)