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EPA chiefs who served under Republicans press for climate action
The Hill ^ | June 18, 2014 | Laura Barron-Lopez

Posted on 06/18/2014 10:19:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

Four former Environmental Protection Agency administrators who served under Republican presidents on Wednesday said climate change should not be a partisan issue.

The former EPA chiefs told reporters that Republican lawmakers who believe the climate is changing should speak out because voters will be on their side.

"This should not be a partisan issue," said William Ruckelshaus, the nation's first EPA administrator under President Richard Nixon and again under President Ronald Reagan. "And public demand for doing something may be able to break it apart."

The problem, the four former EPA administrators said, is looking at climate change through a partisan rather than policy lens.

When asked how the debate would be able to shift away from the debate over science, Christine Whitman, EPA chief under President George W. Bush, said it will take public pressure to make that happen.

"It will be the American people, those who want to talk about climate change — and there are Republicans who believe that the climate is changing and believe humans have an impact on that — but they need some cover and they will get it from the public," Whitman told a group of reporters before testifying before a Senate Environment and Public Works subpanel.

Whitman stressed that when the EPA was first established under Nixon it wasn't because "talking heads in Washington said this was great," it was because the public demanded it.

"It was the public that gave the cover during a contentious time," Whitman said, citing the race riots and Vietnam War in the 1970s.

When asked what they hoped to accomplish in testifying before the Senate, and if they believed Republicans, who have generally been vehemently opposed climate policies pushed by President Obama, would be responsive, all four said they are simply trying to inform the debate.

"The more people with some experience speak out and do it in a non-combative way the better it will be," Whitman said.

Former EPA chief under President George H.W. Bush, William Reilly added: "To extent that the public is presented with this issue and it's kept alive by people who have served Republican presidents, by people like us who are united in our views, then we can show it is a reasonable course to undertake."

Reilly praised the administration's new rules limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants as the "first significant rule to effect greenhouse gases" in decades.

Still, barely a few minutes into the Wednesday hearing, the partisan fight began. Republicans chided Democrats for holding "climate change slumber parties" and voiced their anger with the new carbon rules.

The hearing room was filled to the brim with coal miners, who have come out against the administration's climate policies as well.

The former EPA heads remained optimistic that climate change would become a bigger issue for voters, and less partisan.

"You are going to find more and more [Republicans] speaking out," Whitman said "It won't be the issue that races hinge on, but a lot will come down to voter turnout."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections; US: New Jersey
KEYWORDS: bho44; bhoepa; ccdoubledown; christinewhitman; climate; climatechangefraud; economy; energy; envirowhackos; epa; leethomas; ruckelshaus; toddwhitman; williamreilly
Ah......lawmakers who listen to Christine Whitman will find out petty fast how their constituents and the country feels about this "climate" nonsense designed to control the country's energy supply, depress the economy and drive up costs for everything.
1 posted on 06/18/2014 10:19:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

hurray


2 posted on 06/18/2014 10:20:28 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Statists from both parties favor more government intervention?

shocking.


3 posted on 06/18/2014 10:21:21 AM PDT by TurboZamboni (Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.-JFK)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

See, stupidity is bipartisan.


4 posted on 06/18/2014 10:21:39 AM PDT by Obadiah (None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.)
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To: All
An encouraging piece on a scientist/teacher/author who is taking a stand.

“I have had students who are very strongly pro-the global warming movement in my classes, of course, because most young people have heard this already,” he said. “And when I have them actually do the study, and take apart an IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] claim, sometimes they break into tears, and they say ‘I can’t believe this is the only class I’ve ever been in in which anyone has ever told me there is even an issue.’” Source

5 posted on 06/18/2014 10:21:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Obadiah

Four former Environmental Protection Agency.......climate change ‘should not be an issue.’

Statement as it should be.


6 posted on 06/18/2014 10:23:38 AM PDT by rktman (Ethnicity: Nascarian. Race: Daytonafivehundrian)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Tell you what.

Right now the parts per million of Carbon Dioxide is somewhere between 350-390ppm.

Lets agree to cut that in half....


7 posted on 06/18/2014 10:26:09 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Back in the '70s William Ruckelshaus banned DDT which directly led to the deaths of from between 500 and 750 thousand people a year from Malaria.

And we're supposed to heed his warnings about climate change?

8 posted on 06/18/2014 10:27:45 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: skeeter; All
June Snow: Winter Storm in Montana, Utah, Wyoming As Summer Approaches "Winter just won't quit, even as summer is right around the corner. Cool, huh?

Snow is falling over the higher elevations, as an upper-level low swirls over the Northern Rockies. Alta, Utah reported nine inches of snow on Tuesday, which makes it their third highest one-day snowfall total in June. Lake-effect rain and snow has also developed off the Great Salt Lake, with snow above 7,000 feet.

Mountain snow will continue through Wednesday night or Thursday morning in parts of the Northern Rockies. ............."

9 posted on 06/18/2014 10:38:57 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Ay ay ay - I had a trip to Glacier planned for mid-July. The pass still isn’t cleared.


10 posted on 06/18/2014 10:40:21 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Some great reading on the issue of global warming can be found in the book "Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones. The book is a brilliant and modern update of Darwin's original work.

Here are several for-instance sentences from the book, on page 231, ...

Five hundred million years ago the air had twenty times as much carbon dioxide as it contains now. this led to a natural "greenhouse effect" which was reversed two hundred million years later when the level of gas dropped. Oxygen, too, has swung between extremes. Twice as much of the gas as today allowed the growth of enormous plants, of spiders the size of a book, and of scorpions a foot long.

Today's "global warming" is a lying, political fraud.

11 posted on 06/18/2014 10:43:32 AM PDT by OldNavyVet
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To: TurboZamboni

Indeed. The 1 Percent have gone all out to coordinate this fake crisis. They must have really big plans for us. But who ARE all of these ‘ordinary members of the public” who’re demanding that something be done about “climate change”? John Kerry and Barry O’Bama keep telling me that “something needs to be done,” but I have yet to hear a normal person ever bring the subject up. And who exactly has ever denied that the climate changes? Here we’ve got a handful of rich commies telling me that I need to stop denying something that I’ve never denied. And that if I don’t stop denying the undeniable, something bad’s gonna happen. Like winters will be cold and summers hot. And rainfall wet. What am I missing here?


12 posted on 06/18/2014 11:04:47 AM PDT by Basil Duke
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To: TurboZamboni

Seriously, we’re to believe that people who seek positions of unaccountable power are going to be anything but leftists?

We’re to believe that they are somehow more conservative because they were in these positions of unaccountable power under a conservative president?


13 posted on 06/18/2014 11:06:19 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Sweet Jesus, Christine Whitman? I (almost) forgot about her.....


14 posted on 06/18/2014 11:08:25 AM PDT by capydick (''Life's tough.......it's even tougher if you're stupid.'')
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Yes when you are out of work and about to lose your house and you don’t know how to feed your kids climate change is really high on the priority list.


15 posted on 06/18/2014 11:22:34 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

They cried when they realized the government had been lying to them their entire life’s. Kinda like learning that Santa Claus is not real.


16 posted on 06/18/2014 11:23:22 AM PDT by justa-hairyape (The user name is sarcastic. Although at times it may not appear that way.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

We have the party of big government, and bigger government.


17 posted on 06/18/2014 11:34:22 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Ah great so we have more useless people spouting nonsense based on thin air...... Al Gore must be grinning


18 posted on 06/18/2014 11:37:33 AM PDT by Nifster
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Is there any member of a BUREAUCRACY, who is capable of recognizing the failings of those institutions?

The phrase “self-eating watermelon” seems apt.

It is the nature of any BUREAUCRACY, to grow the size and scope of the organization. They breed empire builders, accountable only to their own whims. They are forever seeking to justify their own existance.

They invent meaningless metrics, by which they can declare success and pretend to have “earned” a bonus.

Lets face it folks....the WRONG 92 Million people are out of WORK.

(WORK = A good or service having intrinsic value in the marketplace)


19 posted on 06/18/2014 12:08:34 PM PDT by G Larry (Which of Obama's policies do you think I'd support if he were white?)
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