"It's Just Utterly Pathetic" - GQP's Environmental "Policies" A Toxic Stew Of Grievance & Paranoia
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On 4 May, a bill put forward by Lauren Boebert, a Republican congresswoman from Colorado, to prevent the federal government acquiring more land was first announced in a newsletter sent by American Stewards of Liberty, a property rights group whose members have likened the Biden conservation plan to a famine caused by Joseph Stalin, as well as to the actions of Adolf Hitler. A spokesman for Boebert denied that American Stewards of Liberty crafted the bill and said it was “common practice” to consult outside groups before public announcements. The congresswoman herself said that Biden was guilty of a “massive leftist land-grab” driven by “extremist enviros funded by George Soros that believe the federal government should control every aspect of our daily lives, including our land”.
Moves at the state level on climate change have also veered towards the extreme. Republicans are attempting to make Louisiana a “fossil fuel sanctuary state” to block federal rules that affect polluting industries, while their counterparts in Wyoming have set up an extraordinary legal fund to sue other states that refuse to take and burn its coal. The Arizona attorney general, Mark Brnovich, has even channeled Trumpist nativism by claiming in a lawsuit that immigrants are, in fact, the cause of the climate crisis as they release “pollutants, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases” into the atmosphere.
“Muscle memory has taken over when we should be playing an entirely different game,” said Joseph Majkut, director of climate policy at the center-right Niskanen Center. “There are plenty of alternative, market-based policies for climate change but instead we just have this grab-bag of predictable, reflexive responses. If you’re crying about hamburgers you don’t really get to influence the policy debate.”
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“Eventually we will need a Republican party that has original, effective climate change ideas but right now it’s just utterly pathetic, it’s driven by grievance and exploiting resentments,” said Paul Bledsoe, who was an energy and climate adviser to Bill Clinton’s administration. Bledsoe added: “Biden’s proposals are very popular and clearly Republicans are getting desperate. They just aren’t interested in solving problems or governing, they have no proper identity. That will remain the same as long as Trump dominates the party.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/14/republicans-climate-crisis-trump-peter-meijer
