Republicans Eliminate Climate Change Panel

CBS

Updated: 3:37 PM ET. 

Republicans will eliminate a House panel designed to explore issues related to climate change, incoming House Speaker John Boehner announced on Wednesday, arguing that the committee is unnecessary and that its eradication would cut government waste.

"The global warming committee doesn't need to be a separate committee," Boehner told reporters. "We believe the Science Committee is more than capable of handling this issue, and in the process we'll save several million dollars."

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which was created by Nancy Pelosi in 2007, was designed to provide members of Congress with a prominent forum for discussion on developing climate-change science and supply information about the global race for clean-energy technology. Over the course of its three-year existence, the panel held 75 hearings, according to Bloomberg News.

The scientific community largely sees global warming as a legitimate and growing problem brought about in part by human activity. Many Republican lawmakers question that scientific consensus.

Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who would have taken over leadership responsibilities for the committee in the new Congress, argued that the panel was a valuable resource for Democrats and Republicans alike.

"While I was initially skeptical of the select committee's mission, it ultimately provided a forum for bipartisan debate, and an opportunity for House Republicans to share a different view on the pressing energy and environment issues that we currently face," he said at a Wednesday hearing on the issue.

Dan Lashof, director of the climate center at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), expressed the organization's dismay with the decision. "The committee was established to create a focus on the need to move in a new direction on energy, to improve our security and address a fundamental threat to public health ," he said in an interview with CBS News. "The new majority that's abolishing committee certainly doesn't look like it's prepared to move forward with the policies that are needed."

"Unfortunately, many of the new members elected to the house have expressed opinions ranging from skepticism to outright denial about the facts regarding climate change," Lashof continued. "As more senior members jockey for positions to be committee chairmen, they're suggesting a highly obstructionist agenda."

Current chairman Ed Markey of Massachusetts said he would continue to spotlight the issue despite the panel's elimination.

"We are not going away because the problems that climate change presents are too dangerous, too urgent, for us to disappear into the abyss of cynicism and lost opportunity," he said during the hearing Wednesday.

"While members of Congress may question the science of global warming, the rest of the world does not," Markey continued. "The politics may change but the problem isn't going away."

A spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi called the decision "very disappointing."

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Lucy Madison is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of her posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.

[MemeMine]

Admit it brothers and sisters, unstoppable warming from CO2 was our Iraq War of lies and climate WMD's and will taint progressivism for decades if we don't confess our CO2 "mistake".
We should encourage more research into pollution, not climate and then we can be real liberals who don't issue CO2 death warrants to billions of children worldwide.
POPULATION and POLLUTION CONTROL, not CLIMATE CONTROL.
System change, not climate change.
Get ahead of the curve everyone and let's start apologizing to two generations that were subjected to our CO2 death threats and resulting needless and heartless panic.

We could deflect blame to the real criminals in all of this climate crime of disinformation, the news editors.

[prohb]

Why are the CO2 death warrents being issued to billions of children worldwide? What exactly are they?

[Vycodyn]

Great! This will save millions, let's say around $5 million. Now let's roll up our sleves and find another 1,000 committees to axe and that will make $5 billion saved. That's about 0.5% of a trillion dollar budget deficit. Even better, if we can find 200,000 committees to axe we will solve our spending problem. Of course ending the tax cuts for the wealthy would be equal to axing 14,000 committees, but that's a different matter.

[stn_sage]

This was a reasonable action to take, a science committee ought to be able to assess the validity of global warming as they should likewise see the same evidence and be able to render an assessment! A special committee shouldn't be necessary.

[crazyname]

Get it going John! Global warming is a crock brought on by people with $$$$ signs in their eyes.

[medas2005]

If the field of climatology is correct, we are on a course that will threaten our economy, civilization, and even the very existence of the human race as we know it today. If the scientists are wrong, we should not waste trillions of dollars to convert to a post carbon economy (unless of course we realize that we will run out of oil at some point anyway). Seems like an issue that justifies having its own standing committee.

[endurorob_5]

Climate cahnge is a normal cycle of this planet. To think we can do anything to stop climate change is foolish and to attempt to stop climate change is even more foolish. The tilt of the earth, the uplift and erosion of mountains, the movement of the continental plates that shift wind and ocean currents, the cycles of the sun......Do you global warming alarmists think you can do anything to stop these?

[prohb]

Hmmmm, let's try logic here. First, you must believe the following or there is no use for you to continue reading this: The earth is over 4000 years old and the carbon dioxide molecule has been proven to trap heat energy. Given those two fact let's continue.
Hundreds of millions of years ago the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was of a higher concentration in those eras with abundant plant life on the land and sea. The climate was very warm and moist (again you must accept the research).
A significant amount of this carbon dioxide was slowly sequestered in the decaying plant material and diatoms in the shallow seas THUS taking it out of the atmosphere.
Through eons it was changed to coal, oil, and natural gas and left undisturbed .....untilllll....you guessed it....
We came along and began spewing it back into the atmosphere thus creating......a warmer, moister world again. Sadly (and I mean that)logic wins here.
The real problem is...we are doing it in a mere few hundred years whereas it was sequestered over millions so the adjustments are more extreame. And it works in tadem with water vapor and methane. No wonder we are causing wacky weather.

[jimbom121]

I did not realize you were a scientist...I guess the hundreds of scientists that have actually been studying this for the last 200 years can look for something else to do.(at least the ones who are still alive)

[MurdochSucks]

What is next burning all books other than the bible? These Neanderthals have no business in making policy that affects us all. What was the US thinking voting in a bunch of Tea Partiers?

[jimbom121]

That is after the new year...along with the trashing of the theory of evolution.

[retiredgustav]

They weren't thinking, it was just a knee jerk reaction to our president.

[MurdochSucks]

by antiglobal5 December 2, 2010 12:12 PM EST

This climate change garbage is just another way to appease a jealous world. They feel that since they were struggeling in the 80s and 90s while we had two and three cars each, cable computers and nice TVS we owe them something. But they are wrong, the only people we owe are ourselves to keep the high standard of living we are used to ( provided the individual can actually afford it) despite the consequenses to others. We are not in this together. The U.S. has always done better standing alone, we don't need anyone else, and the fact that they need us is not important.

______

First off, I don't know what a cable computer is, but it sounds cool. Do you mean that high standard of living over the past 30 years that has led to the largest wealth gap this country has ever had? And also, for clarity sake, the US has always been dependent on other nations. The French, the British, to name a couple, have aided us financially when we decided to fight wars. But don't let those pesky FACTS get in the way of your rubbish arguments that pumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere has absolutely no effect on the climate. Just move to higher ground when the seas come flooding into your podunk town.

[jimbom121]

Nero fiddles while Rome burns. That is the GOP in a nutshell.

[retiredgustav]

Remember when dick cheney said that if there was a 5% chance that Saddam
had wepons of mass destruction, we have to act on that. Let's apply that same 5% therory to global warming, if there is a 5% chance that global warming is right we need to act on it.

[oldbasicgal]

There are still programs studying climate change...just not this HOUSE committee of incompetent people. Their is still a Science Committee, and I'm sure other scientific people are still on it. Just not a political Democratic, Nancy Poloski, HOUSE committee. He He He He He