Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the Democratic chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, on Tuesday forcefully rebuked the panel’s top Republican, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, for his monthlong attempts to undermine the majority’s climate change agenda.
“It is not simply industry attempts to deny science you do not wish the public to hear about; you and other Republicans on the Committee have repeatedly stated that the House Natural Resources Committee should have no interest in the Earth’s changing climate at all,” the Arizonan chairman wrote in a letter to Bishop.
Grijalva said the panel will continue to examine the economic and natural resource management issues that the GOP wants the committee focused on, but it will do so with a focus on future generations affected by a warming climate and not corporate profits. The latter was the committee’s focus when Bishop was chairman last Congress, Grijalva said.
Grijalva was responding to a Monday night letter sent to him by Bishop, laying out the reasons why the committee should not take up an agenda to address climate change. The main reason, he argued, is that the subject of global warming stands outside the jurisdiction of the committee, which covers public lands issues and oversees the Interior Department.
Bishop explained that the committee is losing valuable time to address wildlife and forestry management issues and should back off from the course it is on. Bishop and his fellow Republicans have been pushing the jurisdictional argument since the beginning of last month.
The issue escalated last week when Republicans at an oversight subcommittee hearing were able to vote to adjourn before the hearing commenced. The Republicans were able to sway the agenda in that instance because they outnumbered the Democrats in attendance.
Grijalva said in the letter that the adjournment was “unfortunate,” adding that the only reason for such action is to perpetuate the “fraud” of the fossil fuel industry .
Grijalva also rebutted claims that Democrats aren’t following rules and procedures in noticing the climate hearings. Bishop had argued that the Democrats were improperly not making the subjects of the hearings known until the day before, or day of, the hearings.
The committee under Democratic leadership held seven climate change hearings last month.
The panel is holding hearings this week on offshore drilling on Wednesday, which is not climate change-focused per se, but may touch on the subject. The hearing will examine how federal agencies are implementing the Trump administration’s “industry dominance fossil fuel agenda” and whether Trump officials are working “independently of inappropriate industry influence.”
On Thursday, the committee will hold a hearing on the harm that the industry’s seismic surveys may be having on right whale populations. The committee is also expected to hold a number of hearings next week, and throughout the month of March.
