Oops! Carlos Giminez (R-FL) Who Talked Good Game On Climate, Deploys Trumpy Talking Points On Hill [View all]

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He was a rare Republican who acknowledged climate change, warned about sea-level rise and wondered just last month, "What are we willing to do to confront the changing climate that is destroying our planet?" But Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida seemed to upend years of climate advocacy in five minutes yesterday when he sharply questioned a Biden administration official and cast doubt on the link that he himself had drawn recently between climate change and intensifying disasters.

Sounding prosecutorial at times, Giménez challenged Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell at a hearing on her testimony that climate change is intensifying the damage caused by hurricanes, floods and wildfires. Giménez started by taking aim at Criswell's statement that climate change is making storms more frequent and more severe. He asked her to give him records on the number and severity of hurricanes that have hit the United States since 1900 so "I can look at that data and see if it's in fact true." "Yes, representative, we can get you that information," Criswell replied, speaking remotely during a virtual hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Moving to wildfires, Giménez noted that both he and Criswell have been firefighters — he was a firefighter and fire chief in Miami, and she was a firefighter and deputy fire chief with the Colorado Air National Guard. Criswell became FEMA administrator in April after nearly two years as New York City's emergency management commissioner. "You being a firefighter, you know that fire needs three things," Giménez said holding up three fingers. "It needs oxygen. It needs an ignition source. And it needs fuel. So how does climate change factor into those three things?" "For the wildfire season, the increase in the number of wildfires that we're seeing is the fact that the vegetation is more dried out than it has been in the past, which increases its ability to have the ignition source more quickly," Criswell said.

"OK. But it could also be that there's lax management of those forests and that they're not being cleared the way they should be," Giménez replied, drawing on a familiar talking point used by President Trump, "because you and I both know as firefighters that if you take away the fuel, you won't have these kinds of fires, right?" "Exactly," Criswell said, adding that forest management is a mitigation strategy that can reduce potential wildfire damage. "In the end, it's always about the fuel," Giménez said. "And the fuel is the vegetation. And if we start clearing that out, we may actually start to see a lessening of these devastating forest fires.

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