Protesters outside Koch meeting at Rancho Las Palmas Resort, Rancho Mirage, CA

After the Koch brothers organized top Republican billionaires in Palm Springs to plan their 2012 agenda, the district’s representative, Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), embraced their denial of the threat of greenhouse pollution. In 2009, Mack was one of eight Republicans who voted for sweeping climate legislation. The small group of science-enlightened conservatives were blasted by Republican operatives as “cap and traitors,” “Republican turncoats,” and “libtards,” but easily won re-election against Tea Party candidates. However, Politico reports that Mack will support a bill to outlaw action against global warming drafted by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK):

The Southern California lawmaker will endorse a draft bill to stymie climate rules from Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) “due to her long-standing concerns regarding the role of the EPA and the overly burdensome California standards,” her office told Politico. Upton and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) on Wednesday unveiled the draft bill, which would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and hamstring California’s authority to issue stricter vehicle emission standards than the federal government.

The Upton-Inhofe bill is a radical act of science denial on behalf of fossil polluters, preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from even “taking into consideration the emission of a green- house gas due to concerns regarding possible climate change.” It would reverse not only efforts to track and limit greenhouse pollution, but reverse the Supreme-Court-mandated scientific finding that global warming is dangerous to the American public.

Mack is not the only Republican to abandon the health and safety of her constituents to appease oil and coal polluters. Upton himself argued in 2009 that “climate change is a serious problem.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), and GOP presidential contenders Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich have all flip-flopped on the climate threat, even while the world grows hotter, more polluted, and more dangerous.

In May, 2009, Bono Mack said that building a clean-energy economy and protecting our planet was an “issue that transcends political party.” It seems it doesn’t transcend the toxic reach of Charles and David Koch, however.

Scientific American on Egypt: “… there is no doubt that rising food prices added fuel to an already combustible mix,” other MidEast countries “have been snapping up supplies of wheat in the world market to forestall any hint of food price spikes””or regime change”

E&E News:  High food prices brought about by climate change have helped fuel the current unrest in the Middle East, the United Kingdom’s global warming envoy said yesterday.

Oxfam:  “Food prices are just one of many factors contributing to the situation in Egypt, but they have helped provide a spark for recent unrest across the region.”

The Atlantic:  “The foundation of Egypt’s economy is broken. Even worse, there is the acute shock of global food prices rising. Agricultural inflation puts a particular squeeze on Egypt’s middle class, because their paychecks go overwhelmingly toward nourishment.”

NPR:  “Rising Food Prices Can Topple Governments, Too”

Slate:   “Protesting on an Empty Stomach.”

The Guardian:  “How extreme weather could create a global food crisis” [That's my new article]

ClimateProgress works hard to identify the key climate and energy issues before they hit the mainstream media.  That’s why I wrote this piece last August, “The Coming Food Crisis: Global food security is stretched to the breaking point, and Russia’s fires and Pakistan’s floods are making a bad situation worse.”

That’s why I began a multipart series on food insecurity in early January on the connection between extreme-weather (driven in part by climate change) and high food prices.  Even I didn’t realize how timely it would be, although Lester Brown, an expert on the food-climate connection, had warned me a crisis could be right around the corner.

As unrest spread through the MidEast, it became increasingly obvious that higher food prices were playing a key triggering role.  This link was predictably attacked by those who deny climate science — and a smaller group who seem to accept the science but then deny the reality of climate impacts (even though they purport to believe adaptation to climate impacts is the best climate strategy).  We must understand the impacts we see today, because they are only going to get worse in the future.

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83% favor passing a clean energy bill this year

Guest Blogger Daniel J. Weiss is CAPAF’s Director of Climate Strategy.

Congressional advocates of suspending the Clean Air Act to block the Environmental Protection Agency from requiring reductions in carbon dioxide pollution either don’t know or don’t care that the public overwhelmingly opposes their efforts.   What’s worse is that they pretend that the public is on their side just because their big oil and other special interest pals are egging them on to stop EPA from protecting our families’ health.

Take Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the new Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  In December he co-wrote an article with the head of Americans for Prosperity, an organization funded by the Koch Brothers who own Koch Industries – a major polluter. The article falsely claimed that “We think the American consumer would prefer” that EPA not establish carbon pollution safeguards.  This claim is disproven by recent public opinion research.

ORC International – the pollster for CNN – conducted a nationwide poll for the Natural Resources Defense Council.  It found overwhelming support for more – not fewer – EPA safeguards.

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Pete Altman, in a repost from NRDC’s Switchboard blog.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton is ignoring Americans’ support for the health protections from pollution and pushing a proposal that would allow power plants and other big plants to dump unlimited amounts of dangerous carbon pollution into our air. As I mentioned earlier this week, the nation’s leading public health experts and organizations recognize carbon and other greenhouse pollution as a serious health threat.

That’s why health groups have wasted no time in slamming Chairman Upton’s bill. Here are some of the statements I’ve found Thursday:
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In fact, the industry gets trillions of pennies

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the newest member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, claimed today that the coal industry doesn’t receive any government subsidies, unlike every other form of energy.  Brad Johnson debunks this absurd claim.

The former governor of coal-state West Virginia, who famously fired a rifle at clean energy legislation in a campaign ad, argued that the Obama administration has “villainized” coal. In a hearing on energy markets, Manchin went on to criticize the Environmental Protection Agency “” which has issued regulations to limit the catastrophic impact of mountaintop removal mining and the existential threat of global warming pollution “” for putting up “roadblocks” on the “greatest source” of energy in the nation:

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A Think Progress cross-post.

David and Charles Koch, co-owners of Koch Industries and primary financiers of the Tea Party, have amassed one of the world’s largest private fortunes and Koch Industries is the second largest privately held company in America. Koch sycophants in the media have attacked anyone daring to criticize the company because Koch Industries employs nearly 50,000 people, according to a study produced by Koch Industries last week. In the last two years, David and Charles Koch have jumped from each being worth $16 billion to now being worth $21.5 billion. That means together they went from being worth $31 billion dollars to being worth $42 billion today. David is now the richest man in New York City, and the pair are now on the nation’s top ten list for richest Americans.

However, at a time when the Koch brothers were enjoying spectacular financial gains, Koch Industries laid off well over 2,000 people. Using the same approximate “jobs multiplier” Koch Industries used in its study last week, that means Koch Industries extinguished nearly 8,000 jobs in recent years:

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