Rep. Chris Gibson is taking the hard road of trying to get his Republican colleagues in the House to acknowledge climate change as a threat and a result of manmade activity.
The New York Republican told a group of climate lobbyists that he is circulating a “draft resolution” to get fellow GOP members to stop opposing the idea of climate change and accept that carbon dioxide is causing detrimental changes to the Earth’s climate, which many scientists say is occurring.
“I think we can establish, even though we certainly can have a spirited debate about the level of [man’s] impact…but I think it’s clear that humans are having an impact,” he said.
The statement would appear to fly in the face of comments from fellow Republicans that question, or deny, the phenomenon of climate change, with many openly refuting the idea that global warming is manmade.
The draft resolution’s language acknowledges that human activity is contributing to climate change, Gibson said. It also endorses moving forward with practical policies that support energy efficiency and renewable energy, such as solar panels, that can provide reliable energy at reduced cost, the lawmaker explained to the lobbying group.
“For you guys it’s a no-brainer. I mean you understand that these areas should not be partisan,” Gibson said while addressing the Friends Committee on National Legislation on Capitol Hill Monday afternoon.
The Friends Committee is the policy arm for the Quakers. The group descended on Capitol Hill this week to conduct an aggressive lobbying push with hundreds of students and its members to persuade the GOP to accept climate change and begin moving on legislation that supports energy efficiency and climate resiliency programs.
Gibson told a packed Lutheran church hall a block east of the Supreme Court that he is the leader in the House on getting the GOP to acknowledge climate change and has begun taking practical steps to address it.
Climate change is an American challenge, Gibson said. “Quite frankly, more than American challenges, it’s a challenge for all of us on the Earth,” he said.
In New York, he said, climate change is having an undeniable effect with increasing sea-level rise and more frequent and powerful storms that are wreaking havoc on the economy. He said the issue has become “mainstream” in his district, with farmers, who are typically conservative, acknowledging the phenomenon and looking for solutions.
“We are contributing to things that are creating, and we’re contributing to things that are challenging or maybe even destroying,” he said. “We need to recognize that and our resolution does just that.”
“It looks to bring us together so that we can work on…economically viable ways that we can make a positive difference,” he said.
Gibson’s spokesman Matt Sheehey parsed his words carefully when asked if the resolution would underscore a strategy that adapts to climate change, or a more aggressive mitigation policy to reduce emissions contributing to climate change.
“I can tell you the bill would recognize the existence of changing weather patterns and state that Congress should work on economically viable, pragmatic ways to mitigate the impacts of these changes on human and environmental health,” Sheehey said. But “[t]he bill will not detail any specific policies or actions.”
He declined to comment when asked if Gibson supported scientists who have been skeptical of climate change. The issue over climate skeptics erupted last month when Democrats started investigations into payments allegedly made by fossil fuel companies to scientists who study and do research on climate change. The story of the payments was first reported by The New York Times. Republicans have called the investigations a “witch hunt” and an affront to free speech.
Gibson said many of the technologies required to address climate change are available now, and Congress needs to support a strategy for reducing the cost of the technologies and deploying them so that energy costs can be reduced for consumers.
“I recognize it’s going to take time to do this, but we have absolutely seen that we can do this now, and there’s no time to wait on it.
“The first step is the resolution: Really recognizing the fact that there has been changing weather patterns, that humans are contributing to this and that we ought to work together to be smarter about this,” he said.
“Once you get that resolution then [you] are in a stronger position to get more support for the resources” such as more renewable energy research and development, he explained.
Gibson said he has gained cosponsors for the non-binding draft resolution, adding that there is much more work to be done to gain supporters.
“We do need to overcome some challenges in the larger political discussion,” he said. “We have seen some constructive criticism, possibly we need to get stronger support for it. We are not looking to be dogmatic…we are looking to tweak it if necessary to build out some support.
“The whole point of the resolution is to hopefully translate it into action.”
