It doesn’t take rocket science to tell the climate is changing. More severe weather worldwide is an obvious clue. Even in temperate Portland, summers are getting hotter and winters colder. The loss of so much of the polar ice cap is also a dead giveaway. Any sane person would want to prevent these changes from getting worse. Enter the Republican Party with a bill to hamstring the EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gasses.

In a sharp challenge to the Obama administration, House Republicans intend to unveil legislation Wednesday to ban the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and expect to advance the bill quickly, officials disclosed Tuesday night.

The officials said the bill would nullify all of the steps the EPA has taken to date on the issue, including a threshold finding that greenhouse gases constitute a danger to the public health and welfare.

In addition, it seeks to strip the agency of its authority to use the law in any future attempts to crack down on the emissions from factories, utilities and other stationary sources.

Many scientists say that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollution contribute to global warming, and attempts at regulating them is a major priority for President Barack Obama as well as environmentalists… [emphasis added]