Global Warming Skeptics Ascend In U.S. Congress

November 26, 2010 06:12


“I am vindicated,” says Republican Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, who was ridiculed by environmentalists in 2003 when he declared that [catastrophic] man-made global warming was the “greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people.”

Jim Snyder and Kim Chipman at Bloomberg.com

EXCERPTS:

He has reason to crow: His party’s sweep of the midterm elections will bring into office almost four dozen new lawmakers (11 senators and at least 36 House members) who share his skepticism about climate change, …..

Their influence could be felt soon. When Obama Administration negotiators arrive in Cancun, Mexico, on Nov. 29 for 12 days of climate-change talks, they will no longer be able to claim that their policy agenda—to push for global action on climate change—has the full backing of Congress.

The day after the Nov. 2 elections, President Barack Obama acknowledged that the new balance of power requires him to scale back his environmental agenda.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans who agree the earth is warming because of man-made activity has been in free fall, dropping to 34 percent in October, from 50 percent in July 2006, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

With 9.6 percent unemployment, now is not the time to put new conditions on business, says Representative-elect Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), a skeptic. “We can’t be put in a position where we are going to rush headlong into a policy that is going to tax our businesses and our families,” says Walsh, a Tea Party favorite.

FULL ARTICLE



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