House Republicans want to see no climate change, hear no climate change, speak no climate change.
by David Atkins
House Republicans just wish climate change would go away and that the government scientists would just stop researching it, thank you:
House Republicans want government scientists to focus on predicting storms, not climate change.
The House will vote next week on a Republican bill to require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to focus its efforts on storm predictions instead of researching climate change.
Members will consider the Weather Forecasting Improvement Act, H.R. 2413, as early as Tuesday.
Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) introduced his bill last year after tornadoes hit his home state. Those storms led him to argue on the House floor the government spends too much on climate change research and not enough on developing weather forecasting tools to predict tornadoes and other events.
His bill does not explicitly kick the government out of the climate change business. But it does say NOAA must "prioritize weather-related activities, including the provision of improved weather data, forecasts, and warnings for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy, in all relevant line offices."
Last year, Bridenstine released a statement saying the intent of the bill is to "protect lives and property by shifting funds from climate change research to severe weather forecasting research."
"The bill does not increase spending but rather shifts funding to make improved severe weather forecasting a higher priority of the Federal government," he said in July.
Democrats see the bill as an attack on anti-climate change efforts and have said the research is needed to meet the bill's goal of improving the prediction of tornadoes and other weather events.
That's a little cute, of course. Since climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of extreme weather events, it's a little difficult to research them without also researching the impact of climate change. Moreover, the cumulative impact of climate change is exponentially more severe than any given individual weather event. The issue here is less about the best way to deal with climate and weather effects, and more about the danger to conservative economic ideology and big oil if people know about the dangers of climate change.
But hey--what you don't know about can't kill you, right?
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