Two years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, some members of the House of Representatives stood up to look at the underlying problem of climate change, while others buried their heads in the sand and refused even to ask what the problem was.
On October 26, 2005, Dennis Kucinich introduced H. Res 515 to the floor of the House of Representatives. The resolution, if passed, would have created an official request that President George W. Bush provide all documents “in his possession relating to the effects of climate change on the coastal regions of the United States”.
Given the climate-related disasters that have befallen the United States over the last two years, including extreme drought, deadly heat waves, and unusually strong wildfires, this sort of resolution has proven to make a great deal of sense. Even at the time, without the subsequent disasters, the need for Congress to have this information, in order to fulfill its duty of oversight of the Executive Branch, was so clear that the Kucinich resolution received 150 cosponsors.
However, the Republicans that occupied leadership of the House of Representatives at the time refused to allow the full House to vote on the resolution, and blocked any attempt even to hold a committee hearing on the subject. The Republicans on the Science Committee actually wrote that getting information on the impact of climate change on the coastal regions of the United States “would not advance any public policy goal”.
The Republican position on the matter was that even getting information about the impacts of climate change would be a bad, bad idea. Given plenty of reason to believe that the United States would be facing new problems, the House Republicans deicided that they just didn’t want to know about any of it.
This resolution wasn’t just an issue two years ago. It should be an issue again today. The reason is that four members of the House of Representatives are now running for President. How did they perform on this issue?
Dennis Kucinich, the author of the resolution, did the right thing.
Ron Paul did the wrong thing. Ron Paul stood with the ignorance-is-bliss Republican leadership. He refused to cosponsor the resolution.
The two other Republican presidential candidates from the House of Representatives, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, made the same pro-ignorance move.
The opposition of Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter to this resolution should be a reminder to voters that, when it comes to running the federal government, the Republican presidential candidates are more interested in ideology than solid scientific information.
(Source: Library of Congress)
What could Ron Paul’s argument be on this bill? That it’s not constitutional for members of Congress to ask for information?
Yes! Nowhere in the Constitution, after all, are there the words, “Congress has the power to ask for information the President has about climate change!”
I would suppose that Ron Paul’s supporters will probably argue that it’s the states and local village governments that ought to solve this problem… because if the federal government gets involved in global warming, it will just mess things up!
Never mind that the federal government’s lack of involvement on the issue of global warming for 20 years now has made things worse. Ron Paul’s supporters don’t need stinkin’ facts.