House Committees Focus on Global Warming

Washington, D.C., November 1, 2007—Today the U.S. House of Representatives addresses global warming from two different angles, with hearings in both the Budget Committee and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Budget Committee members will look at the costs of limiting carbon dioxide emissions, while the Energy panel members will attempt to connect recent California wildfires with the effects of global warming.

"It is encouraging to see that members of the Budget Committee are at least considering the crippling costs of the energy rationing agenda being advanced by the majority in the House," said Competitive Enterprise Institute Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell. "Their time might be better spent, however, assembling a plan focused on growth, innovation and resiliency. If risks from climate change are anywhere near what the alarmists claim, that’s the only path that will allow us to maintain our prosperity into the future."

The agenda setters on the Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee have also taken today as an opportunity to use last month’s devastating wildfires in Los Angeles and San Diego counties as proof of global warming calamity.

"Though there is no obvious relationship between global temperature and drought in southern California, the alarmists nevertheless advocate the quixotic task of preventing drought and wildfires by controlling greenhouse gas emissions," said Adjunct Analyst Steven Milloy. "Global warming, it seems, also makes a good excuse for federal and state bureaucrats and politicians who have failed to properly manage high-risk areas, at least in part because of pressure from anti-logging and anti-development environmental groups."

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