Congressional Session Preview: It's Not The Heat, It's The Stupidity

The 114th Congress convenes this week. The last time a Congressional anti-science caucus was this strong may have been during the Scopes Monkey Trial ninety years ago. But that’s not the worst part of it: The folks who want to gut government research and deny climate change are virtually guaranteed perpetual re-election and jobs for life. Let’s get straight to the moral of this story: Entrenched anti-science isn’t going away. Not soon, maybe not in our lifetimes. Every one of the most ardent congressional climate deniers who chose to run won re-election, mostly by runaway margins, and probably have jobs for as long as they want them. A landscape of gerrymandered “safe” districts and wide-open campaign cash spigots make their futures even safer, even as their behavior helps make our own a little more bleak.

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Departing from Congress is Steve Stockman, the East Texas firebrand who failed to unseat John Cornyn in this spring’s Senate primary. Stockman turned up at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit sporting a theatrical red blindfold, suggesting, I suppose, that climate action advocates were Blind Commies. His replacement is dentist Brian Babin, an enthusiast for both energy independence and the Keystone XL pipeline. The Texas 36th district could benefit mightily from approval of the Keystone, which would have a terminal refinery in Port Arthur - a perfect spot to undercut energy independence by exporting Keystone’s oil. Just like Joe Barton wants. Newly elected Rep. Babin drilled Democratic opponent Michael Cole: 76 percent to 22 percent.

Just north of Babin’s district is that of Louie Gohmert. Let’s just be nice and say he may be the most colorful member of Congress, new inductees pending. Louie is a staple of The Daily Show, and has warned that a loosely patrolled border would lead to a brisk import trade in “terror babies.” But for Rep. Gohmert, “crackpot” is too polite a moniker. In October, he lashed out at the Obama Administration, whom he characterized as so overwrought about climate change that they were willingly allowing Ebola to eat us alive. A month later, Gohmert beat his Democratic challenger by 55 points.

Then, there’s the rookie field. New congressman Glenn Grothman may have only won his Wisconsin seat by a relatively paltry 16 percent, but he’s busting out of the gate on this “environment stuff,” including the War on Coal and “global warming, which doesn’t exist anyway.”

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http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/its-not-the-heat-its-the-stupidity