Cantor's Loss to the Tea Party Kills Any Hope for Green Legislation

The defeat of Eric Cantor by Tea Party candidate David Brat in Virginia means that we can expect the deadlock in Congress to continue. This is particularly true with regard to energy, environment and climate legislation. While the GOP is well known for being anti-science and anti-environment, Tea Party Republicans are far more likely to be climate deniers than their mainstream Republican counterparts. Cantor is no friend of the environment but he has lost to someone that is far less likely to support even the most rudimentary green legislation.

When it comes to climate change there is a stark partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats, but the tendency towards denial is far more pronounced among Tea Party Republicans.

According to a 2013 Pew Research Center poll, 67 percent of Americans think climate change is real. Only 4 percent of Democrats think climate change is not happening and 13 percent of non-Tea Party Republicans share that view. Among supporters of the Tea Party the number who deny the veracity of climate change soars to 41 percent. To put it another way 61 percent of mainstream, non-Tea Party Republicans think there is solid evidence for global warming, while just 25 percent of Tea Party Republicans share that view.

Despite massively outspending his opponent ($5.2m compared to $120,000), Cantor suffered a humiliating loss. The results are a stunning upset as a House majority leader has not suffered a defeat in a primary in 115 years. Cantor was the second most senior Republican in the House and he was expected to replace John Boehner as the speaker. This loss represents a significant defeat for mainstream Republicans and a major victory for the climate denying fringe.
The grassroots movement that helped the GOP to gain ground has hijacked the Republican party and undermined national governance. Their extreme form of obstructionism has even succeeded in shutting down government.

Brat's campaign strategy focused on how Cantor had worked on bipartisan efforts including immigration reform and financial compromise efforts such as extending the debt ceiling and budget authority.

For the Tea Party, working in a bipartisan fashion is tantamount to selling your soul to the devil. This election result will no doubt send shock waves through the Republican party and push some to be even more obstructionist, anti-science, and anti-environment than they already were.

Brat's victory is an indication that Republicans have yet to cleanse their party of their Neanderthal brethren. While many had hoped that Republicans would succeed in ferreting out the anti-government Luddites that infect the party, the most recent results indicate that they are still alive and well. The net result is that no legislation will get through Congress in the foreseeable future, this is especially true for progressive energy and environment bills.

The Tea Party has broken the American legislative process and this definitively precludes all forms of green legislation. Unless Democrats can retain control of the Senate and take back the House in the 2014 midterms the legislative deadlock will continue.

© 2014, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Republicans' Anti-Science Stance on Global Warming

Republican contenders are towing the climate denial line ahead of the midterm elections. An influx of Republicans means that both chambers will be polluted by more anti-science skeptics of human-induced global warming.

The facts are hard to refute, but where there is a will there is a way. Although some Republicans will concede that the climate is warming, they do not attribute it to human activity.

Gov. John Boozman, Arkansas explained it this way, “I think that we’ve got perhaps climate change going on. The question is what’s causing it. Is man causing it, or, you know, is this a cycle that happens throughout the years, throughout the ages. And you can look back some of the previous times when there was no industrialization, you had these different ages, ice ages, and things warming and things. That’s the question.”

Despite Republican efforts to deny, the fact remains that the vast majority of scientists and scientific literature recognizes that humans are causing global warming. While 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming, incredibly, GOP Senate candidates unanimously disagree with the scientists.

Of all the Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, only one, Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware, supported strong climate action. Now that Castle has been resoundingly defeated by Tea Party candidate Christine (not a witch) O’Donnell, the GOP slate is unanimous in its opposition to a green economy.

Despite the overwhelming body of evidence, Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate running against Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada, described climate change legislation as being “based on an unscientific hysteria over the man-caused global warming hoax.”

It is not only the candidates spawned by the Tea Party that are making absurd statements. Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri said, “there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.” And Rep. Rob Portman of Ohio added, “when you analyze all the data, there is a warming trend according to science, but the jury is out on the degree of how much is manmade.”

Another Tea Party candidate, Florida’s Marco Rubio echoed the same sentiments: I don’t think there’s any scientific evidence to justify it, he insisted, while also deriding his opponent, Charlie Crist, as a “believer in man-made global warming.”

The full slate of GOP candidates deny the existence of man made climate change. Some Republican's vying for office have even claimed that global warming is good for us. Last June, Ron Johnson claimed that global warming saved Wisconsin from turning into a glacier, saying he was “glad there’s global warming ... We’d be standing on top of a 200-foot thick glacier.”

Wisconsin's , Ron Johnson is a Republican candidate for US Senate, he has said uncategorically, “I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change,” Johnson also called scientists and all those who believe in human causes of climate change, “crazy” and called the climate change theory “lunacy.” He achieved the pinnacle of climate change stupidy when he attributed this summer's flooding and forest fires to "sunspot activity."

GOP Senate Candidate John Raese is no better, he promotes a pre-industrial vision of science and he blames volcanoes for global warming. Raese has said he has “zero” [trust that] human activity is contributing to climate change.”

Climate change is ultimately a security issue. Denying anthropogenic climate change is a refutation of reality, and blaming volcanoes and sunspots for global warming is as ridiculous as Palin and Limbaugh blaming the BP oil spill in the gulf of Mexico on environmentalists.

These Republican candidates would be laughable if they did not have traction with the American public. The midterm elections are fast approaching and Republican lies are too dangerous to be ignored.


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Republican Strategy for the 2010 Midterms and Beyond

Republicans may not have a plan for America in the 21st century and they most certainly do not have an environment strategy. However, conservatives do have a well financed, highly targeted strategy for defeating the Democrats in the November 2010 midterm elections and beyond.

The conservative approach is exemplified by Dick Morris, the Fox News spin master. Morris has a plan to control the Congress called Project 100.

Although Republicans only need to add 39 seats to gain control of the House of Representatives, the ambitious goal of Project 100 is for the Republicans to win 100 seats in this year's congressional elections. This type of mandate would definitively kill any hope of passing energy and climate legislation any time soon.

According to Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, the plan is much more ambitious. If Republicans win control of the House, they will not only stonewall the Democrats, they will also try to impeach President Obama. If they don't get the 67 Senate votes they need in 2010, and Obama wins a second term, “the House will vote to impeach him before he leaves office,” Chait wrote.

To help accomplish this goal, conservatives are targeting Democrats in constituencies where they are most vulnerable. The national committees and other outside donors are contributing heavily to influence the outcome of 50 key races. Project 100 is also selecting 50 "second-tier" races on which to focus their attack ads and other misinformation.

Tea party activists are working to defeat Democrats in the November elections, but they are already setting their sights on unseating several Republican senators in 2012. The targets are senators who have dared to work with the Obama administration, including Olympia Snowe and Richard Lugar.

Tea party activists are putting incumbents on notice that the bitter, divisive, anti-establishment sentiment defining this year’s politics will not end on Election Day 2010.

The stakes are high, a Republican victory on November 2nd 2010 will result in a legislative stalemate that is sure to ignore climate change.

Fueled by Tea Party outrage and propaganda machines like Fox News, the Republican strategy poses a very real threat to the environment.


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