Fred Upton Archives

Republican Attack On The Air Your Breathe

Okay… all those who are tired of breathing semi-decent air, raise your hands. Now if you prefer to be breathing air that is completely polluted, raise your hands. Funny, I’m not seeing any hands being raised, but if Republicans get their way, breathing in pollutants would be the norm.

On Tuesday, a bill drafted by Republicans in the House of Representatives which will strip the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 34-19, with all Republicans supporting the measure, and three Democrats in favor. The bill now moves to the general House floor for a final vote. ClimateBiz Reports;

The House bill, also known as H.R. 910, would repeal the agency’s finding that greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger public health. The bill introduced last week would also repeal the mandatory reporting of greenhouse gases and restrict the EPA from granting federal waivers for stricter fuel standards for vehicles made in 2017 or after, as it has previously done for California.

“This really is a shocking attack on states’ rights and on public health,” Stanley Young, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, told the San Francisco Chronicle in a story published Monday. Young estimated H.R. 910 estimated could roll back upcoming cuts in pollution and petroleum consumption by 25 percent nationwide.

Bill co-sponsor Fred Upton (R-Mich.) initially billed the legislation as a job-saver and antidote to rising gas prices, a statement debunked by PolitiFact. Republicans have promised a full House vote before the Easter recess. Though passage seems likely in the House, its fate in the Senate is uncertain.

Of course, this is all in an effort to keep businesses and Corporations unregulated. You see, Republicans believe that the less regulations on a Corporation, the more profit that corporation can puts into the pockets of CEO’s. It’s the EPA’s job to regulate these Corporations, providing them with an “acceptable” amount of pollutants they’re allowed to emit into the atmosphere. Conflict of interests here.

So, continuing with the Republican’s mantra of businesses and Corporations first, who cares if a few thousands or even a few million people die in the process. Heck, who cares if the entire globe suffocates? Someone, somewhere will be making a bonus if the EPA can’t regulate!

Read the rest of ClimateBiz’s Report here

Chairman of Energy Disagrees with Climate Change

How crazy is it that the House of Representatives Republican Chairman of Energy, Fred Upton thinks that climate change is not man-made. You know, all the pollutants we pump into the atmosphere day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, have nothing to do with why our climate gets warmer and warmer, right?

Brad Johnson gives this report.

At a public forum today, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the new head of the House energy committee, denied that climate change is manmade. Upton, who received $20,000 from Koch Industries in his most recent campaign, had called for a reduction in greenhouse emissions as recently as June 2009.

Upton has now introduced legislation with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to overturn the scientific finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse pollution threatens public health. This morning, Upton was pressed by National Journal‘s Ron Brownstein as to why the Upton-Inhofe bill describes climate change as “possible.” After repeated attempts to avoid the question, Upton finally explained his wide-straddling stance: he accepts that the planet is warming, but not that the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are a cause:

“I have said many times, and there was a report a couple of weeks ago that in fact you look at this last year, it was the warmest year in the last decade, I think was the numbers that came out. I don’t — I accept that. I do not say that it is man-made.”

Upton then repeated the falsehood that “even if cap-and-trade had been enacted, it would not have changed the temperature by a tenth of a degree anywhere in the world.”

In reality, the Environmental Protection Agency has found that U.S. cap-and-trade would avoid several degrees of catastrophic warming. And 2010 was not just the hottest year this decade, but the hottest year in recorded history. This is why the National Academies of Science found last year that “climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities” and that the United States should “act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Instead, tomorrow Upton will hold a hearing with several witnesses funded by Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries to praise the Upton-Inhofe pollution act.

– Brad Johnson