The 6 Most Ridiculous Responses To Obama’s New Climate Rules

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/02/3443697/climate-rule-reactions/


Clockwise from top: House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), GOP political strategist Ed Gillespie, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY).


On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled the first draft of regulations requiring coal-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions, the most ambitious move yet by the Obama Administration to combat one of the main drivers behind climate change.

Republicans (and several coal-friendly Democrats), for the most part, were not happy.

They were so unhappy, in fact, that they took to the internet to voice their grievances about the rule. But instead of finding ways to substantively debate the issues, many politicians used their voices to obscure the new regulations — misleading readers about what they do, using inflammatory rhetoric, and exaggerating about how the rules will be felt by normal Americans.

Here are the worst examples of how political figures reacted in the hours after the regulations were released.

Greenhouse Gases Don’t Harm Anybody

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is perhaps the Senate’s most infamous climate denier, who has said the United Nations invented the “global warming thing” as a power grab. He once built an igloo on the National Mall and called it “Al Gore’s New Home.”