NAPLES, Fla. — The leading House Republican proponent of combating climate change is drifting on a pontoon boat far away from Washington, D.C., in Rookery Bay south of Naples, Fla.

Florida Rep. Francis Rooney, who possesses a boat captain’s license from the U.S. Coast Guard, has sailed his family across the Atlantic Ocean, but today he is a passenger with 35 of his constituents — and heaps of Chick-fil-A sandwiches — on a tour of the local effects of climate change, led by scientists from Florida Gulf Coast University.