WASHINGTON — It may be so hot out West that President Joe Biden recently forgot whether he had actually declared a national climate emergency (he hasn’t, officially).
But this summer’s record-breaking heat wave has nevertheless had Republicans at the Capitol deflecting and dodging all things climate change related.
Globally, July was the hottest month ever recorded. While El Niño is surely impacting this summer’s heat wave, scientists with research collaborative World Weather Attribution recently released a report that found humans and the fossil fuels we burn share the blame, too.
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“The burning of fossil fuels is the main reason the heatwaves are so severe," the report reads.
At the Capitol, most Republicans don’t even seem to have seen the report.
As for whether humans play a role?
“I don’t know,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Raw Story at the Capitol in July. “I don’t think anybody knows.”
The concern over the record-breaking heat wave is more an East Coast problem, according to at least one U.S. senator whose state generates significant amounts of fossil fuels.
“I think people, especially in the Rocky Mountain West, are used to the rhythms of nature, and people back here seem to dismiss the natural rhythms of nature and blame it on mankind and greenhouse gasses,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Raw Story before lawmakers left Washington for their August recess.
For others in the GOP, mention climate change and they go straight to one of the GOP’s new causes: protecting home appliances that emit unhealthy emissions, such as natural gas-burning stoves.
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“You can get rid of all the kitchen appliances in America – you can get rid of America and you still wouldn’t be affecting the outcome,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told reporters at the Capitol in July.
In July, the nation’s capital was drippingly hot, which Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) surely noticed.
“It's hot. Hell can’t be a lot worse, but I’m told it’s not humid in hell, but it sure is hot,” Romney told Raw Story at the end of July.
While Romney is one of only a handful of Republicans who supports global efforts to curb carbon emissions, in particular, he still won’t go so far as to say human fossil fuel use is impacting today’s record breaking temperatures.
“I don't know whether what we're experiencing relates to global warming, but we are having global warming and climate change, and I'd be very much in favor of actions that would make a difference in the emissions that are produced globally,” Romney said.
For their part, Democrats such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who chairs the Budget Committee, are using their gavels to hammer home humanity’s impact on the climate.
“It’s the choke chain of the fossil fuel industry, which still is their primary financial support and we’d know even more if the fossil fuel industry wasn't hiding behind dark money,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) tells Raw Story.
As Biden has been touting on his jaunt out West last week, when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Democrats boasted that the nation took dramatic strides toward reducing U.S. emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030 through investing in areas such as clean energy manufacturing and tax credits for clean (or cleaner) cars.
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While few Democrats expect Republicans to suddenly see the scientific light (or “consensus,” according to NASA) on climate change, they’ve been disturbed seeing deadly, record heat waves — as well as severe wildfires and potential “above normal” hurricane activity — met with GOP crickets.
At the end of July, while complaining to Raw Story about how House Republicans are focused on election 2024 and not bringing serious measures to the House floor, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said the juxtaposition couldn’t be more stark.
On the one hand, there’s the climate. Then there’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), say, holding up nudes of Hunter Biden and her calling Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) “a little bitch” while dismissing climate change as a “scam,” promoting fossil fuels are “amazing” and declaring carbon emissions to be no big deal.
“There would be certain entertainment value to it, if it were not 112 degrees, 20 days in a row in Phoenix, Arizona, if there were not nine inches of rain in Vermont, and if there were not record drought, and weather calamities piling up, all over the country, the world,” Raskin told Raw Story last month. “These are serious times and they're lurching from antic to antic.”
That said, neither Republicans or Democrats in Congress have this year mustered the political will to advocate for truly dramatic climate-related action.
For example, even the largely symbolic House resolution entitled “Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal” and introduced in April by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), has attracted less than half of Democratic member of the House and no Republicans.
The resolution has sat, languishing, in the House Subcommittee on Conservation, Research, and Biotechnology ever since.
