Climate change has been an extremely divisive political issue for the past decade, and with the recent shake-ups in the United States senate, this is unlikely to change any time soon. Passing any sorts of laws to regulate carbon emissions and city wide pollutions has been difficult because even the existence of climate change continues to be debated throughout both congress and the Senate.
Last year, President Obama issued Environmental Protection Agency rules that would require states to set limitations on carbon emissions from power plants via an executive order. Even then, with a Democratic majority in the house, both parties met such rules and regulations with major backlash. Don Stewart, the spokesperson for newly elected republican Speaker of the House Mitch McConnell said, “there was bipartisan opposition to the president’s unilateral regulatory assault before the election”.
Since then, opposition to climate change legislation has only grown. In the midterm elections, republicans took the majority in both the senate and House of Representatives. The new Senate Majority leader and long time republican senator, Mitch McConnell, has even declared an anti-climate legislation stance, pledging to do away with the EPA.
So what’s the basis for this ardent opposition? There are two main stances taken by political officials. A handful of politicians (all republican) deny that Climate change is an effect of human activity. The most common defense of such a view is that science does not support such a claim. Republican, Florida senator Marco Rubio has stated, “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way that some scientist are portraying it”. This stance is general taken by more extreme sub-groups within the Republican Party, such as the Tea Party. Though small, these sub-parties have great influence in the political arena.
The main argument against Climate Change legislation, however, is rooted in concern for the United States economy. It is true that in the Midwest, in states such as Kentucky (Senator McConnell’s state), Coal mining remains one of the primary sources of income. To limit coal pollution is to limit jobs and income from American’s still recovering from hard economic times.
Whatever the reasoning behind the back-lash, it has been made abundantly clear that Climate Change is one issue that will be put on the back burner in the terms to come. The EPA’s future is now on unstable ground, and climate change activists, in government and the public sector, will have to find new tactics (and more money) to convince the government that the future of our environment must take precedence over our economic systems.
For more information on the results of the midterm elections and its possible effects on climate legislation, refer to these great sites:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141105-united-states-congress-election-climate/
http://graphics.wsj.com/midterm-election-results-2014/
