Only One Republican Senator Refused to Say ‘Climate Change Is Real’
Only One Republican Senator Refused to Say ‘Climate Change Is Real’
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Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi speaks at a news conference after the Senate luncheons in the Capitol on Jan. 7, 2015Tom Williams—AP/CQ Roll Call
A Mississippi Republican was the only U.S. Senator to vote against an amendment declaring that climate change is real on Wednesday.
Roger Wicker, the incoming chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was the only no vote. The final vote was 98 to 1, with Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader from Nevada, not voting.
The amendment, introduced by Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, included only 16 words: “To express the sense of the Senate that climate change is real and not a hoax.” It was designed to highlight Republicans’ rhetoric that has run counter to the scientific consensus that the earth has been warming in recent decades.
But the stunt left some of the biggest deniers of manmade global warming some wiggle room. Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, voted for the amendment and asked to be a co-sponsor.
“Climate is changing and climate has always changed and always will,” said Inhofe, author of The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. “There is archaeological evidence of that, there is biblical evidence of that, there is historical evidence of that. It will always change. The hopes is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate. Man can’t change climate.”
Whitehouse said he hoped the vote would send “a signal” that the Senate “is ready to deal with reality.”
“I almost hate to use my minute because I am so eager to hear what is said during the minute that our energy chairman will follow me with,” said Whitehouse before the vote. “But I’m hoping that after many years of darkness and blockade that this can be a first little vote beam of light through the wall that will allow us to at least start having an honest conversation about what carbon pollution is doing to our climate and to our oceans. This is a matter of vital consequence to my home state … and to many of yours as well.”
Wicker’s office did not reply for comment. In the past, Wicker, the new chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has said that scientific data on rising global temperatures is not conclusive. “President Obama continues to defend his aggressive policies with assertions that global temperatures are on the rise — a notion challenged by scientists and scholars,” he said in a 2013 press release. “The recorded temperatures were much lower than the predictions from climate models often cited by the President and global warming activists.”
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