GOP Fulfils My Prediction

A month ago, I wrote an article about how the national GOP was likely to further alienate the Millennial Generation when the big energy/environment legislation started getting attention. I suggested that Republicans could provide a different, more fiscally cautious approach to the issue -- but that they would end up spouting insane warming-denial rhetoric instead.

At the end of the article I quoted Larry Rasky, saying about the GOP:  "You give them the opportunity, they'll talk about drilling for oil, and how global warming isn't really happening."

Indeed. Today House Republicans finally unveiled the "American Energy Act," their response to the Waxman-Markey (or, as coot-crazy Rep. Paul Broun recently dubbed it, "Wacky-Marxist") "American Clean Energy and Security Act." And guess what? They want a lot more drilling for oil, and they say that global warming isn't really happening.

In fact, they don't just say it isn't happening, they want to codify that assertion, as Think Progress's Brad Johnson points out. The Republicans' bill would change the Clean Air Act to specifically exclude the EPA from considering greenhouse gases as air pollutants, regardless of what EPA scientists actually believe, and even if those pollutants are known to be harming the biosphere.