Guest commentary by David Middleton

From Politico…

‘The existential threat of our time’: Pelosi elevates climate change on Day One

By ANTHONY ADRAGNA and ZACK COLMAN 01/03/2019

[…]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought up the issue in her opening address while touting a new select panel to come up with ideas on how to solve it, and the Energy and Commerce Committee announced that climate change would be the subject of its very first hearing this year.

[…]

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and Republicans who control the Senate have shown no interest in pursuing dramatic reductions in carbon emissions — meaning no House bill is likely to become law — even as scientists warn that time is running out to get a handle on the situation.

The Democrats’ change in tone is evident in the name of the new panel. It is now called the “Select Committee on the Climate Crisis,” compared to a focus on “energy independence and global warming” when Democrats formed a similar panel was formed a decade ago.

“We must … face the existential threat of our time: the climate crisis,” Pelosi said in her opening address to Congress Thursday. “The entire Congress must work to put an end to the inaction and denial of science that threaten the planet and the future.”

[…]

Progressives, led in part by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), are tugging the caucus into a more urgent posture that they say best reflects what scientists have called for to avert climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last year that the world has 12 years to put policies in place to avoid irreversible, catastrophic effects of climate change.

“At least come out as appearing the Democratic Party has an agenda on this issue. That would be the biggest win,” Greg Carlock, Green New Deal research director with progressive think tank Data for Progress, said of his hopes for the committee.

Still, some Democrats are cautious about what a panel devoted to climate change might entail. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who co-chairs the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, said he plans to speak with incoming select panel chairwoman Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) about the direction and scale of climate legislation.

“We’ve got to find a way that we can accommodate our goals and not be seen as anti-business,” Cuellar said. “A lot of the oil-and-gas state folks feel the same way.”

Moderate and establishment Democrats largely prevailed in their first showdown with liberals over the select committee. Whereas protesters, joined by Ocasio-Cortez, stormed Pelosi’s office last November demanding the panel be empowered to issue subpoenas and write legislation, the committee that Democrats will establish Thursday can do neither of those things.

[…]

Progressives, led by the Sunrise Movement, were dismayed by the panel’s final structure and especially that it lacks a requirement that Democratic members pledge not to accept campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies.

“This committee is toothless and weaker than the first Climate Select Committee from a decade ago, and it does not get us meaningfully closer to solving the climate crisis or fixing our broken economy,” said Varshini Prakash, the movement’s co-founder, in a statement. “This is deeply disappointing, but in losing this fight on the Select Committee, we have won the biggest breakthrough on climate change in my lifetime.”

[…]

Politico