Climate hawks are starting to take a strong stand against the Senate frenzy to cripple Clean Air Act rules on behalf of global warming polluters. Four anti-climate amendments have been attached to unrelated small business legislation now under consideration. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), with the support of nearly the entire Republican caucus, submitted the Upton-Inhofe climate denial bill, while Democratic senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Max Baucus (D-MT), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) introduced their own bills to hogtie the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) have been leading the fight against limits of Clean Air Act enforcement of greenhouse pollution rules. Today, spokespeople for these climate hawks confirmed to ThinkProgress that they are committed to opposing any and all of these pollution riders, no matter which party has introduced the legislation.

A vote on at least the McConnell amendment is expected next week.

To call your senator and find out the stance on the four anti-science, pro-polluter amendments, check out the Credo whip count page.

Apparently, the seals believe a debunked theory that Global Cosmic Rays drive climate. Or maybe they just watch Fox News.

April Fool’s?  If only.

On March 21, the ‘science’ blogger Anthony Watts actually published the following headline story and lede:

Canadian Harp Seals In New England (“prediction” of cooling?)

Yes, Watts is suggesting that Canadian Harp Seals are psychic, or, technically, have developed precognition — although a bizarre form of precognition whereby they incorrectly predict the future based on discredited scientific theories.  You’d think that would have been selected against by evolution.  But I digress.

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The Tea Party Congress doesn’t just hate EPA rules that protect against industry destroying our country with greenhouse pollution, mercury, coal ash, and mountaintop removal. By a veto-proof margin, the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to prohibit Clean Water Act limits on pesticide pollution of lakes, streams, and rivers.

Lobbyists for industrial agriculture polluters cheered the 292-130 vote for H.R. 872, which “will amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Clean Water Act to clarify Congressional intent and eliminate the requirement for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits for applications of pesticides approved for use under FIFRA.” The California agribusiness lobby Western Farmers Association praised the “practical, bipartisan example of eliminating government regulations that needlessly increase farm business costs“:

The measure would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from requiring farmers or companies to comply with the Clean Water Act when using pesticides on or near water sources. The bill’s supporters said pesticides are adequately regulated by other laws. The bill passed 292 to 130 on Thursday. The 130 negative votes came from Democrats. Fifty-seven Democrats joined 235 Republicans in supporting the bill, which has yet to see Senate action.

Clean Water rules against pesticide pollution are hardly “needless.” The waters that are home to fish and that feed our drinking water supply are being poisoned. Agribusiness uses hundreds of millions of pounds of FIFRA-approved pesticides like atrazine, metolachlor, cyanazine, alachlor, acetochlor, metribuzin, bentazon, and trifluralin a year. These pesticides, linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders, are found in nearly every single stream in the United States.

Following a 2006 USGS report on the nearly ubiquitous pesticide contamination of our streams, rivers, and the fish that live in them, the EPA under Bush tried to establish a loophole-ridden rule that was thrown out by the courts. The EPA was given until April 9, 2011 to establish new rules, but was granted a delay until October 31 on Tuesday.

White House, business join hands on ‘clean’ vehicle fleets

President Obama is rolling out a new partnership with corporate giants like AT&T, UPS and PepsiCo to reduce their fleets’ oil use with hybrid and electric vehicles, alternative fuels and other steps that trim oil consumption.

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House Speaker Palin racks up historic first floor victory

Washington DC:   After 45 minutes of contentious debate and a 15-minute vote, the House of Representatives passed a budget that allows the government to continue operating for one hour.  In a straight party line vote, the House approved a $10 million cut in government spending and a variety of amendments.

At a hastily gathered press conference that took place even as the House was debating another one-hour CR, Speaker of the House Sarah Palin said, “You betcha this proves those naysayers wrong.  The Tea Party can govern effectively while staying true to our principles.  That’s why I’m going to be the next President of the United States.”

Earlier in the day, John Boehner resigned the Speakership in disgrace after it was revealed he had used taxpayer funds to pay for “tear duct enhancement” surgery.

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Bombshell epidemiology analysis finds, “Only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario”

A must-read study in Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress, “When zombies attack!: Mathematical modelling of an outbreak of climate zombie infection” concludes:

In summary, a zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to attack hard and attack often. As seen in the movies, it is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble.

As has been widely reported in the NZM (non-zombified media), a growing portion of the GOP political class has fallen victim to a zombie apocalypse (see “Attack of the climate zombies!” and “Dawn of the brain-dead Senate” and links below that I repeat in the event that our efforts fail and the distant descendants of the survivors try to reconstruct the course of the epidemic in order to save humanity using time-travel  a la 12 Monkeys).

The question all uninfected Americans are asking is, what is the best way to deal with the climate zombies?  Thankfully, some Canadian mathematical modelers have analyzed the situation and offered their optimal strategy.

First, some background on zombies.  I recommend starting with the new AMC TV documentary series, The Walking Dead.  Shrewdly, AMC no longer runs stuff like Casablanca and Shane, but focuses on what really matters to humanity now.   Wikipedia explains in its entry on zombie apocalypse:

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Washington, DC, April 1 “” CBS News has obtained exclusive archival footage providing irrefutable evidence that so-called “progressive” blogger Joe Romm is in fact an active participant in the Tea Party movement.

In this shocking video, Romm, a physicist and former astronaut who blogs at ClimateProgress.org, is asked by a fellow Tea Partier to “talk tea party talk.” And he does — suggesting Romm is no stranger to Tea Party events:

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CAP’s Tom Kenworthy in a WonkRoom cross-post.

On March 31st, the House Natural Resources Committee held yet another hearing to tie rising gas prices to an oil industry agenda. The panel’s Grand Oil Party leadership continues to ignore reality. It’s not the Obama administration’s supposed imposition of “regulation after regulation, roadblock after roadblock” that’s holding up more domestic oil drilling, as claimed by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), the committee chairman. He acts as if his panel can help reduce gas prices at the pump by hiding the truth and smacking the Obama administration.

The facts are simple:

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Conservatives are always talking about how important it is to fight malaria globally.  This Think Progress repost makes clear that is just talk.

Yesterday, the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs held a budget hearing on the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the primary agency in the government responsible for dispensing humanitarian aid and assisting global development efforts.

As Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin notes, one moment of the hearing provided a particularly startling fact about H.R. 1, the House Republicans’ bill for continuing appropriations to fund the government.

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