The Jury is Still Out

Posted on March 20, 2013 at 2:00 pm by JM Ashby

The fox is guarding the hen-house.

via Tim Murphy

As the new chairman of a key House subcommittee on the environment, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) will be one of the GOP’s leading actors when it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency and the growing threats from climate change. So with his first hearing as chairman on tap for Wednesday, what does the freshman Republican—and end times novelist—think about anthropogenic global warming?

He’s not sure.

The chairman of the House subcommittee on the environment is “not as convinced” as others that humans have anything to do with climate change. And not only that. He also believes there’s “no better example of the overreach of government” than the Environmental Protection Agency and it’s draconian laws that say you can’t kill endangered species on a whim.

Evidently, the House subcommittee on the environment will focus less on how to protect it and more on how to destroy it more efficiently. And I keep asking myself if our congress is really just an elaborate sketch comedy.

We’re all fucked.

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  • GrafZeppelin127

    I’ve said it before and I”ll say it again: It’s an improv act.

    • mrbrink

      Oh, but it is very real.

  • muselet

    The Rs put Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey, Lamar Smith, Dana Rohrabacher and James Sensenbrenner on the House Science Committee.

    Paul Ryan chairs the House Committee on the Budget.

    And Chris Stewart chairs the Subcommittee on Environment.

    I think I detect a pattern here.

    –alopecia

    • mrbrink

      “Paul Ryan chairs the House Committee on the Budget.”

      On a House Speaker waiver, no less. Look at this fuck with his psychotic smile at the top of the People’s House website.

      Turning committees into right wing psycho wards has spread to government websites. It’s the budget committee. There are 17 Democrats on this committee, but Paul Ryan’s one-man-committee smile and rejected budget drowning out reality on the front page makes up the difference for the disappearing of any Democratic opposition.

      • muselet

        It’s an odd way to present a congressional committee to the world, to be sure, but it’s a PR gamble. If Paul Ryan personifies the Budget Committee, then if the budget does something people like, he personally gets a little bit of credit.

        The gamble is that if the budget hurts people, he personally gets a lot of the blame. And since what the Ryan budget (*snerk*) does is about as popular as hemorrhoids, if the thing ever got passed his political ambitions would evaporate.

        It’s good for the nation that the Ryan budget (*snerk*) will never pass. Unfortunately, it robs us all of the opportunity to see Paul Ryan running as fast as he can to stay ahead of an angry mob.

        (Snark aside, I do wish the Rs would at least try to make it seem as if they’re selecting committee members who aren’t actively hostile to the purpose of those committees.)

        –alopecia

  • r_dale

    I like Wonkette’s take on this story:

    End Times Fetishist Congressman To Chair Climate Committee, Murder All Your Animals For Freedom
    Wouldn’t it be nice if creepy endtimes dominionist thinking, combined
    with crackpot climate science denying, was just limited to weird guys
    haranguing you on street corners? You can usually avoid those guys by
    keeping your head down, walking fast, or flinging bodily fluids at them.
    But, because you live in the greatest country in the world,
    motherfuckers, you get to have that guy running a congressional subcommittee on climate change instead.

    Read more at http://wonkette.com/#LMtfl6kpJPcUGUvf.99