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Saturday, January 11th, 2014

Climate-change Push Launched by Senators

Author:     CAROLYN LOCHHEAD
Source:     San Francisco Chronicle
Publication Date:     11:28 am, Friday, January 10, 2014
 Link: Climate-change Push Launched by Senators
Stephan:   This report describes a probationary positive development on Climate Change. This may come to nothing; it's certain the Republicans in the Senate will largely try to block it. But this effort by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to get the Senate to engage seriously with climate change may happen. It's too early to tell whether this is mostly just an epiphenomenon, or the next important positive step in the Climate Change Trend. If the Senate seriously takes up climate change it will stimulate an extended national debate. The media won't be able to avoid it. I think the result of such a debate, where data and real life will converge, will result in a clear national mandate to become pro-active in climate change remediation.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said Thursday that they would lead a new Senate task force to knock down a “barricade of special interest lies” on climate change.

A prime goal of the group will be enlisting the support of outside interests, from corporations such as Coca-Cola to the Garden Club of America.

“We believe climate change is a catastrophe that’s unfolding before our eyes, and we want Congress to take off the blindfolds,” Boxer said in a briefing in her Capitol Hill office. “We know what happens when you throw the environment under the bus. There’s a place where it’s happening, and it’s called China.”

The task force of more than a dozen senators, none of whom are Republicans, has the blessing of Majority Leader Harry Reid and the White House. The group will work with newly installed presidential counselor John Podesta, a Washington insider who has been active on climate change as founder of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Its aim is to undermine those in Washington who deny that humans are causing climate change, mainly Republicans, but also Democrats representing states with large fossil fuel industries.

“There is a […]

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