Chaired by Markey (left), the panel was 'a forum for bipartisan debate,' Sensenbrenner said. In memoriam: House climate panel

The House Democrats’ prized global warming committee died quietly on Wednesday.

It was four years old.


Created in 2007 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to draw attention to the causes and effects of climate change, the committee didn’t have much of a chance to survive the upcoming Republican takeover. Wednesday, the axe fell.

"We have pledged to save taxpayers' money by reducing waste and duplication in Congress,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for incoming Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “The Select Committee on Global Warming – which was created to provide a political forum to promote Washington Democrats' job-killing national energy tax – was a clear example, and it will not continue in the 112th Congress."

With the end in sight, Committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) organized what was billed as an “all-star” cast of witnesses to testify Wednesday on the dangers posed by climate change. And like the Democrats’ hopes for a bill limiting carbon dioxide emissions, things didn’t turn out exactly as planned.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark didn’t show and environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was delayed by several hours.

Reporters covering the hearing were sparse and most of the rank-and-file lawmakers who appeared declined to give opening statements. Markey was the only committee member who returned in the afternoon to hear Kennedy’s testimony calling for domestic innovation on “clean energy” technologies.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the committee’s top Republican and a vocal climate skeptic, had lobbied GOP leadership to keep the panel alive to probe the Obama administration’s global warming policies, but he’s expected to be offered a lead role in investigating climate science on the Science Committee.

“While I was initially skeptical of the select committee’s mission, it ultimately provided a forum for bipartisan debate, an opportunity for House Republicans to share a different view on the pressing energy and environment needs that we currently face,” he said Wednesday.

Many of Sensenbrenner’s fellow Republicans were happy to see the committee scrapped.

“I think that if we’re looking for a good place to cut, not having this could be a good place to cut,” committee member Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), told POLITICO. She said other committees would carry out oversight and investigations and cutting the panel would be a “good place to start eliminating redundancies.”

Blackburn added that the panel has offered a useful platform for climate skeptics. “I think that we’ve done a good job of proving that global warming is not a decided science.”

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the likely next chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, welcomed the decision. “It’s probably a valuable political tool for the Democrats, but not for us,” he said.

Markey and other Democrats vowed to continue their fight to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the minority over the next two years.

“The politics may change but the problems have not changed,” Markey said. “The problems still need to be remedied by legislative action that comes from the United States Congress.”

Since the panel’s inception, Democrats have held more than 75 hearings focusing on the impacts of global warming, ending U.S. reliance on foreign oil, and “clean energy” job creation, Markey said. The committee served as a political platform for Democrats as they worked to pass sweeping energy and climate legislation through the House last year, but the panel doesn’t have any authority to write legislation.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who serves on the panel, called it a “travesty” that Republicans decided to axe the committee. “It’s the worst thing that could happen,” he told POLITICO.

But another committee Democrat, Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, was resigned to the committee’s demise. “If there is no enthusiasm and there appears to be none … I’m quite confident that they will be able to pursue their interests in other committees,” he said.

Kennedy said the decision is “not just a catastrophe for global warming but it’s a catastrophe for national security.” With the GOP in the majority, he said, “We have got to make sure to try to educate the Republicans, and to the extent they can’t be educated, to take Congress back.”