The fight over global warming in Washington, D.C., has shifted from climate science to the dismal science.

It's all economy, all the time.

Senior administration officials have played up economics with coordinated talking points in recent weeks. U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, and White House Office of Management and Budget chief Shaun Donovan have talked up President Obama's Climate Action Plan as a bulwark against the rising costs of extreme-weather threats and declining agricultural productivity.

"We don't act despite the economy, we act because of the economy," McCarthy proclaimed at an event last week (Greenwire, Sept. 25).

Republicans have countered that the administration seems determined to choke manufacturing and mining with climate regulations. With the spotlight on the cost of global warming regulations, Republicans at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing last month bristled at Democrats who labeled them climate change "deniers."


"It's not about denying climate change," Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said. "It is about the priorities at this particular time in our history." In other words, he said, Obama's policies will raise electricity prices and make the United States less competitive.

"There has been a plethora of regulations coming out that has been pretty damaging to our economy," he said, "and many people are of the firm belief that our economy is still sputtering because this administration has created so much uncertainty and obstacles to economic growth."

A longtime skeptic, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), said at the same hearing, "It's debatable what causes [global warming], but it is a fact that it's happening." He then focused on the cost of making climate action the "dominant factor" in policy.

And Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) added in response to a question about climate science, "I do think it is appropriate to question the practicality of the [EPA rule for curbing power plant emissions], without being accused of being a denier."

To be sure, most Republican lawmakers say they still have doubts about the degree to which human emissions contribute to climate change. But a GOP House aide said the administration policies have shifted the discussions on Capitol Hill to economic impacts.

"We've got a focus that we've been pushing on the cost-effectiveness of these rules," the aide said, adding that the members' messaging was more of a "trend" than a coordinated set of talking points.

Democrats are showing more interest in discussing the science of warming, he said, because that helps them justify the cost of Obama's policies. Republicans are trying to shine the light on those downsides.

But Mike McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist and strategist, cautioned that shifting away from questions about "very shaky" science -- or simply using the "I'm not a scientist" line uttered by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) -- Republicans are surrendering ground that will be difficult to win back.

The congressional staff and consultants behind these talking points assume the public will be swayed by pocketbook considerations, as they frequently are, he said.

"They don't comprehend that once you've given up on the science, you've given up on the issue," he said.

If the administration's messaging on sea-level rise, drought and disease outbreaks goes unanswered by Republicans, he said, questions being raised about regulatory costs won't count for much.

"If you really believe the apocalyptic rhetoric coming out of the White House, then you've got to do something," he said, echoing a point often made by climate advocates. "You're morally required to do something. It is untenable, politically, philosophically, ideologically and from a common-sense basis to say, 'We agree that everything is going to hell, but we don't think anything should be done about it. Or we want to sit around and wait for another six months to figure out what to do.'"

'An insulting term'

In an interview, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said Republicans are shifting their rhetoric in response to being called out as "climate deniers," a term he uses liberally to criticize the House majority for what he says is its refusal to accept the scientific consensus.

"I think it's effective," he said. "I think people don't like the idea of their representatives denying science or thinking that science is a political opinion, which is the attitude they had for a long time."

But Terry said Waxman uses "climate denier" to demean his opponents and shut down debate.

"OK, call me a Neanderthal, because that's what he's doing," he said. "If you're a climate denier, you don't agree with science, you have your head in the sand. It's an insulting term."

Terry said he believed in environmental stewardship.

"That's why I drive a hybrid, that's why I recycle," he said.

But he didn't concede that human emissions are the primary driver of climate change as the vast majority of climate scientists say.

Whitfield, whose panel has direct oversight over EPA's carbon restraints, said he thought the climate was changing.

"I think human emissions have an aspect of it," he said in a recent interview. But the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is proportionally tiny, he said, and the amount that is contributed by human beings is even tinier.

"There's more CO2 being emitted from man-made deforestation than from fossil fuel emissions," he added. Experts say deforestation is responsible for between 10 and 20 percent of man-made CO2, while fossil fuels combustion is responsible for a majority.

Whitfield's verdict: "The amount of man-made [carbon] is minute in the scheme of things."