The Conservative Climate Caucus boasts 82 members, more than a third of the Republicans in the U.S. House. You might be led to think from the name that at least a part of the GOP has finally wised up about what scientists have been warning for at least 65 years in private and 36 years in public about our future if vigorous action isn’t taken to ameliorate, mitigate, and prevent some of the worst potential impacts of the changes the planet is undergoing. You might be led to think the CCC would have a positive impact on policies designed to actually take such action.
But no. With a handful of exceptions, it’s clear the caucus is mostly a decoration for Republicans to wear when campaigning, especially this year if they’re one of the 12 Republicans in districts President Joe Biden won in 2020. Several members have histories of climate science denial.
Let’s start with what the League of Conservation Voters has to say about the caucus. Every year, the moderate LCV creates a congressional report card on all members of the Senate and House of Representatives based on around 20 pieces of environmentally oriented legislation brought up for vote in the past year. It’s not the whole picture, but it offers pretty good evidence of the real stance of senators and representatives. On a score of 0-100, with 100 being greenest, the lifetime average score of those 82 CCC members as of 2023 was … 5%. The seven-member leadership did a tad better, with a 12% average. Rep. Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District got the top score of the caucus, still a pathetic 41%. Two members must have gotten lost on the way to signing up for some other group—Reps. Michael Cloud and Nathaniel Moran, both of Texas, scored 0%.
Since the CCC was established in 2021, Republicans in Congress have heightened their long-standing assault on existing climate- and other environment-related rules, policies, and proposals. Republicans have attacked moves by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in tense hearings. They’ve introduced a bill to scuttle the electric vehicle tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act. They plan, if they manage to win in November, to eliminate all the climate elements of the IRA. They have blasted the president’s use of the Defense Production Act for developing technologies such as heat pumps, solar panels, and fuel cells, something that CCC member Andy Barr—LCV score 4%— labels as "environmental fantasies." For the past year, CCC members and many other Republicans in Congress have intoned the incessant GOP talking point of “radical green agenda.” The real radical agenda, the real extremism, is a product of those politicians seeking to sabotage, delay, or co-opt any serious climate-addressing action.
Over the past couple of weeks, while the Biden administration was announcing new emissions rules, expanded national monuments, more money to spread solar power to low-income Americans, and other environmental initiatives, the House Republicans were ramming through a bunch of reactionary bills, with assistance from a smidge of Democratic enablers.
Chris D’Angelo catalogued some of the bills that passed April 23-24:
- H.R. 6285 to reverse the Biden administration’s rule barring oil and gas development across more than 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope. It also requires the Interior Department to reissue all Trump-era oil and gas leases in Alaska’s fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Biden administration canceled these last year.
- H.R. 3195 would rescind the Biden administration’s 20-year ban on new mineral development across 225,000 acres of national forest land adjacent to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, one of the most visited wilderness areas in the U.S. It also would restore canceled leases to Chilean mining giant Antofagasta for a $1.7 billion underground copper-nickel mine and block judicial review of any mining leases and permits in the region.
- H.R. 3397 would require the Bureau of Land Management to withdraw a new rule aimed at balancing conservation and ecosystem restoration with traditional land uses, including drilling, mining, logging, and grazing. It would also prevent America’s largest land manager from proposing or finalizing any similar rule in the future.
- H.R. 764, the Trust the Science Act, would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring back the Trump administration rule that stripped gray wolves of protections under the Endangered Species Act. The bill would also block judicial review.
- H.R. 615 would block federal agencies from banning the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on federal lands and waters.
Said House Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman of Arkansas—LCV score 3%— regarding the BLM change: “This rule is a poorly concealed effort to lock up more lands to advance the Biden administration’s radical 30x30 agenda. This rule would fundamentally upend more than 50 years of land management practices across the West that rural communities have relied on for their livelihoods.” The 30x30 agenda would protect 30% of U.S. land and waters by 2030.
Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández called the Republican package of bills a “great gift” to corporations that would destroy years of conservation work. But those bills are unlikely to clear the Senate, where Democrats still hold the reins for now.
What’s in that package is mild compared to the great gift that Republicans will lavish on the fossil fuel industry under the Heritage Foundation’s institution-toppling Project 2025, which Dartagnan recently explored. I am pretty sure none of my readers needs another lecture on how disastrous for this crucial lead abatement program and just about everything else (except for maybe the gilding industry) a second occupation of the White House by Donald Trump would be. Or if Republicans gained a majority in both houses of Congress. Or both. These folks have all been quite clear about what they plan to do. The Project 2025 manifesto lays it out. They want to wreck everything and are not shy about it. The Weather Underground’s 1974 “Prairie Fire” prescription for revolution was barely more incendiary.
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