Climate science denier Darrell Issa joins House climate change caucus

https://thinkprogress.org/darrell-issa-climate-caucus-69db6098737f#.e2udzlehh

Dr. Joe Romm is Founding Editor of Climate Progress, “the indispensable blog,” as NY Times columnist Tom Friedman describes it.
Mar 3
Climate science denier Darrell Issa joins House climate change caucus
This is a stunning reversal.


Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) announced this week he has joined a bipartisan House caucus on climate change. But the news, first reported by Reuters, glossed over one major point: Issa has been a long-time climate science denier.

He is now part of the Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group looking at “policy options that address the impacts, causes, and challenges of our changing climate.” But in August 2013, Issa won a “Climate Change Denier” award by the League of Conservation Voters for “his extreme anti-science views, which put him at odds with 97 percent of scientists and a majority of the American people.”

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“If Darrell Issa, once a proponent of climate change denier conspiracies, who abused his congressional authority to issue witch hunts against climate scientists, now embraces action on climate, more power to him,” Mann told ThinkProgress. “I welcome his late conversion and I thank him for it.”

So what led to Issa’s conversion? Most likely it was the near-death experience he had during the 2016 election, which he won by only slightly more than 1,600 votes out of 310,000 cast. The New York Times described it as “his first seriously competitive race in more than 15 years.”

Issa, the “richest member of Congress,” a car alarm mogul, used to be the voice of the Viper alarm system that warned, “Please step away from the car."

If Issa can step away from the deniers, anyone can — with a little push from voters.