Deb Halland's Confirmation A Proxy Fight By GOP In Their Endless Defense Of Oil & Gas
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John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican who has received nearly $1.2m from oil and gas companies and their employees in his time in the Senate, said he was “troubled by many of [Haaland’s] radical views” and scolded her over a tweet in which she said Republicans didn’t believe in science. Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, said he was “deeply concerned” over Haaland’s “radical” support for Joe Biden’s pausing of oil and gas drilling on public land, neglecting to mention his campaign had taken $288,500 from these industries in just the past five years.
Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who has over his Senate career accepted nearly $1.7m from oil and gas interests, pointedly asked Haaland: “Will your administration be guided by a prejudice against fossil fuel, or will it be guided by science?” while Utah’s Mike Lee, who blamed protections placed on Bears Ears, an area of the state important to Native Americans, for “impoverishing” locals, has taken in $366,000 from oil and gas during his Senate tenure.
This staunch opposition will probably not sink Haaland’s nomination given Republicans are the minority in the Senate and Joe Manchin, a conservative swing Democrat from the coal heartland of West Virginia, has said he will vote to confirm her after getting sufficient assurances that fossil fuels won’t be immediately jettisoned in order to tackle the unfolding climate crisis.
But the feud over Haaland’s nomination highlights the enormous political challenge of rapidly shifting the US away from oil, coal and gas towards cleaner forms of energy to avert ever more disastrous heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, societal unrest and other maladies. Republicans have signaled they will fiercely enforce a status quo whereby fossil fuel extraction across vast swaths of public land, including areas sacred to Native Americans, remains unhindered. Opposing them is a broad coalition of environmental, youth and indigenous rights groups, along with the progressive wing of the Democratic party, who see Haaland’s historic ascent as a pivotal moment to confront longstanding environmental, economic, racial and social inequities.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/28/deb-haaland-confirmation-interior-secretary-fossil-fuels-climate
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Sen. Mike Lee says we can solve climate change with more babies. Science says otherwise.
Washington Post
March 26, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. EDT
At least one GOP senator believes that to fight climate change, all you need is love.
During floor debate ahead of a vote on the Green New Deal, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) told his colleagues that if they really want to address environmental concerns they’ll encourage people to couple off and have more babies.
“Climate change .?.?. is a challenge of creativity, ingenuity and technological invention,” Lee said. “And problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws, but by more humans. More people mean bigger markets for innovation. More babies mean more forward-looking adults — the sort we need to tackle long-term, large-scale problems.”
This recommendation, to add more people to the planet, doesn’t track with science or reason. A 2017 research article determined that one way an individual could contribute to eliminating greenhouse gases is to have one fewer child.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-mike-lee-says-we-can-solve-climate-change-with-more-babies-science-says-otherwise/2019/03/26/67f91b2e-4fed-11e9-88a1-ed346f0ec94f_story.html
The same Mike Lee is asking whether the Biden administration be guided by a prejudice against fossil fuel, or will it be guided by science?
