Dems Crafting New Climate Change Message

Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) accused Republicans on Monday of being in denial over climate change.

The pair held a briefing during which they called on experts to provide them with talking points to use against GOP members who disagree that global warming is a mad-made problem.

“If a member of Congress came up to Mr. Waxman and I and said, ‘there is no global warming,’ can I tell them they’re wrong?” Markey asked Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project Director Dr. Richard Muller. 

“The evidence is compelling that there is global warming,” Muller responded. “But if you say to them, ‘but we’re uncertain how much of it is due to humans,’ you may have a chance of winning them over.”

After further questions regarding a response to the GOP’s attribution of climate change to the “heat island effect,” Muller responded they should cite the Berkley Earth study that reported climate changes in rural stations and thus could not be attributed to the effect.

Dr. Ben Santer, research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Dr. William Chameides, dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and vice chairman of the National Academies’ Committee on America’s Climate Choices, provided Markey and Waxman with a persuasive argument on the urgent need to pass legislation to control global warming.

“To make a choice to not act now is extremely imprudent,” Chameides said. “The prudent thing to do is to begin to act now and address climate change to give us the room to continue to adjust as we learn more.”

“Everything that I understand about this problem…does indeed suggest that there is a marked imprint of human activity on our climate system,” Santer added. “To ignore that would mean jeopardizing not only our own futures but the life and livelihood of our future generations. They will be inheriting a different climate future if we do nothing about this problem.”

The GOP-controlled House has voted 21 times, in this session alone, to block actions to address climate change, said the Democratic lawmakers.

Administration Officials Come Under Fire During Solyndra Hearing

By Adrianna McGinley

Witnesses in the Solyndra investigation faced intense questioning by members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce during a hearing Wednesday.

Jonathan Silver, Executive Director of the Loans Programs Office for the Department of Energy, and Jeffrey Zients, Deputy Director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, testified before the Committee conducting the investigation into a $535 million loan awarded to Solyndra, Inc. under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Last week, the company suspended business and announced bankruptcy, launching the investigation. 

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) in her opening remarks stated that the questions to be answered were whether the Bush and Obama administrations conducted sufficient due diligence before approving the loan, whether the Department of Energy sufficiently monitored the financial status of Solyndra after the loan had been disbursed, whether Solyndra made accurate representations of its financial prospects both before and after loan disbursement, and whether the government made the right decision in restructuring the loan when Solyndra’s financial standing deteriorated.

The hearing quickly sparked finger pointing as both sides closely questioned the timeline of the loan approval, attempting to determine attribution to either the Bush or Obama administration. Questions of political favoritism came in to play, as did questions of whether the witnesses were career civil service employees or political appointees.

Answers from witnesses often seemed unclear, leading Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) to say to Silver, “I really want you to stop throwing everybody else under the bus, I hear you throwing all your staff under the bus. I want to know, you’re in charge, you’ve handled loans of this size and now you’re saying its everybody else’s fault except you, but you’re in charge.”

Executives from Solyndra were scheduled to be at Wednesday’s hearing, but will instead be testifying next week.