GOP Takeover In The House May Spell Doom For Obama’s Environmental Policies | TPM
GOP Takeover In The House May Spell Doom For Obama’s Environmental Policies | TPM
Ryan J. Reilly and Johanna Barr | November 8, 2010, 10:19AM
Republicans have said they plan to start the battle against the Administration’s environmental priorities with attacks on “Climate-gate,” the scientists who connect air pollution to climate change and focusing their ire at the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority over air pollution.
Republican Members of the House of Representatives are set to take on a larger role in setting environmental priorities and funding scientific research in the 112th Congress, in the wake of a blue-ribbon report that once again warned that the U.S. is in danger of slipping in global science and technology.
So it’s a bit troubling that some of them don’t believe in climate change and still others want to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of some of its power to regulate pollution. And then, of course, there’s the guy who apologized to BP on behalf of the government after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
So, where do those guys stand on environmental policy? Pretty far from where the Administration wants to go, it seems.
Rep. Ralph M. Hall (R-TX), at eighty-seven years old, is the oldest member of Congress. He currently serves as the Ranking member on the House Committee on Science and Technology and is set to become its chair in January. A staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry in his home state of Texas, Hall has, in the past, voiced his support for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. His positions and votes on environmental issues have earned him a zero-percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters every year since 2004, when he received a rating of 13 percent.