EPA Director Confirmation Hearings Turn Into A Debate On Climate Change

The video above exemplifies why Bernie Sanders (I-VT) thanked John Barrasso (R-WY) for his ignorant, ostrich-like behavior during the Senate Environment Committee hearings on Gina McCarthy, president Obama's nominee to head the EPA. The cameo by Climate Change denier Jim Inhofe is hilarious. It's worth pointing out that Miss McConnell put 8 anti-Science, Climate Change deniers on the committee, David Vitter, Jim Inhofe, John Barrasso, Jeff Sessions, Mike Crapo, Roger Wicker, John Boozman and Deb Fischer. Thursday the 8 clowns howled like a pack of wolves instead of asking serious questions of the nominee and made it clear they're against... well, the EPA. The L.A. Times characterized their behavior as "a clear signal to the White House that they will continue fighting environmental regulations as vigorously as they did in the first term."

As head of the EPA's air pollution branch, McCarthy oversaw the promulgation of the most sweeping and controversial regulations during Obama's first term, including reducing carbon emissions from cars and light trucks and cutting mercury from power plant emissions.

"I'm not sure whether the nominee before us today is personally aware of so many folks who have actually lost their jobs because of the EPA and the role that I believe it is taking now, which is failing our country," said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo). "How many more times, if confirmed, will this EPA director pull the regulatory lever and allow another [coal] mining family to fall through the EPA's trap door to joblessness, to poverty and to poor health?"

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has said McCarthy wants to pursue a "radical" agenda, but Senate staff members say the minority is unlikely to block her confirmation.

Though the decline in coal-fired power plants is driven largely by cheap natural gas, air pollution rules hit fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, hardest because of their high level of dangerous emissions. Obama has said that if Congress doesn't pass legislation to address climate change, he would get his agencies, including the EPA, to move on the issue.

Senators of both parties pressed McCarthy on how the EPA would tackle climate change, but she declined to give specific answers. Instead, she asserted unequivocally that climate change would be a priority for the EPA.

"This is one of the greatest challenges of our generation and our great obligation to future generations," McCarthy said. "I am convinced that those steps can and must be pursued with common sense. And I firmly believe they can produce not only benefits for public health, but also create markets for emerging and new technologies and new jobs."

Democrats defended McCarthy, pointing to her long record of working with politicians of both parties before she arrived at the EPA in 2009. McCarthy served as a key environmental official for three Republican governors in her native Massachusetts, including Mitt Romney, before leading Connecticut's environmental protection office under Republican Gov. Jodi Rell.

Under McCarthy, Connecticut entered a greenhouse-gas emissions trading market that spans the Northeast. If confirmed, she said, reducing greenhouse gases on a national scale would be one of her goals. McCarthy also pledged to clean up water sources and to revise "antiquated" chemical safety rules.

Efforts by Congress to stymie measures similar to those implemented by McCarthy in Connecticut were beaten back by the Obama White House. But the administration itself played a role in thwarting some important pollution rules. And it's clear that McCarthy, like her predecessor, Lisa P. Jackson, is outside the tight-knit circle around Obama that sets administration policies.

Maybe the Republicans could call Joe "Oily Joe" Barton (R-TX) in to explain how right-wing crackpots need look no further than Noah's Ark to know exactly what's up with climate change.