Earlier today at a hearing on approving the Keystone pipeline, Buzzfeed reports that Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) took a slight detour into biblical science.

I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m a proponent and supporter of the Keystone pipeline, so it’s somewhat redundant for me to ask too many questions. I would point out that people like me who support hydrocarbon development don’t deny that climate is changing. I think you can have an honest difference of opinion of what’s causing that change without automatically being either all in that’s all because of mankind or it’s all just natural.

I think there’s a divergence of evidence. I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.

Leaving aside all theological debates over when the flood happened in the narrative of the Bible itself, there is a place for theology and there is a place for science. Apocryphal details of one do not constitute proof in the other. Current carbon dioxide levels have not been this high for the last 15 million years — it has taken millions of years for carbon to be turned into fossil fuels, and the planet’s climate was very different back then, it is true. But the planet has also not seen such an exhuming and burning of carbon in such a dedicated way in such a small period of time … and we are seeing the effects in spiking CO2 levels, increasing temperatures, growing energy in the hydrological cycle, and sea level rise.

While some Senators might discount the idea that 97 percent of climate scientists have concluded that humans are causing climate change, most people trust the experts.

Speaking of Senators, there was a hearing yesterday on the other side of the Capitol that illuminated a similar Congressional tendency to assume expertise over things best left to experts.

Yesterday Admiral Samuel Locklear, head of Pacific Command, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Last month, he said that changing climate “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment” in the Pacific region. During the hearing, the ranking member — who had earlier said “I can’t recall a time in my life when the world has been more dangerous” — brought up the crucial national security issue of climate change in his first question. However, this senator was the senior senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe.

What followed was an attempt to lead the witness that backfired. Senator Inhofe tried to get Admiral Locklear to take back his statement about the threat of climate change. Locklear responded that while of course North Korea and other powers were threats, he was talking about long-term threats posed by sea level rise and natural disasters. When he got to the efforts to plan for this with our allies, Inhofe realized he would not be getting his desired answer and cut him off. He then asked a completely different question about energy security, to which the Admiral replied that yes, it would be great to produce all our own energy. Inhofe may want to look beyond oil, because the U.S. has nearly 1.6 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, while consuming about 19.2 percent of the world’s total energy.

Senator Inhofe’s constituents in Oklahoma are disproportionately feeling the effects of climate change according to a recent report and eight counties in Oklahoma have been hit by ten or more weather disasters since the beginning of 2007.

Transcript and video of the exchange after the jump.

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by Luke Morgan

Former EPA Chief and White House Climate Czar Carol Browner says that climate deniers in the House of Representatives are the biggest impediment to getting a price on carbon.

When asked what the most significant obstacle in passing climate change legislation is during an event in Washington on the Clean Air Act yesterday, former EPA Chief Carol Browner pointed to Republicans in the House and their “stunning” denial of the reality of earth’s changing climate.

“I think unfortunately, right now a majority in our House of Representatives appears to not even think the problem is real,” Browner said. “It’s sort of stunning to me because I’ve never seen the breadth of scientific consensus on an environmental issue like there is on this.”

Speaking directly after Browner was Texas GOP Representative Joe Barton. Barton is the chairman emeritus of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and sits on the Environment and the Economy subcommittee.  However, while collecting $1.7 million from Big Oil over the years, he has displayed alarming ignorance on climate reality.

Barton claimed that carbon dioxide is not only irrelevant to the Clean Air Act, but that it’s not dangerous at all because it’s “a necessity for life.” To illustrate his example, he noted that he was exhaling carbon dioxide as he spoke, and actually argued that people should build greenhouses because they create life, so greenhouse gases are good.

“There’s a reason that you build things called greenhouses, and that’s to help things grow,” he said.

Barton also claimed that the atmosphere had, in the past, contained carbon dioxide levels greater than 5,000 parts per million (ppm), implying that we could do so again today.  The current scientific consensus, however, is that 350 ppm is the safe upper limit.

Barton said that he accepted the climate is changing, but he discounted human influence and the rise in extreme weather as “opinions.” Both the anthropogenic causes of climate change and its effects on extreme weather events are extremely well-documented in the scientific community.

Barton’s remarks came during a panel convened by National Journal and the American Lung Association on the legacy and future of the Clean Air Act.  Although he spoke alone, many of the other speakers either pre-empted or responded to his off-base remarks.

Dr. Jerome Paulson of the Children’s National Medical Center pointed out the silliness of Barton’s argument that CO2 is a necessity for life.  Paulson noted, “If we had no sodium, we wouldn’t be alive.  But there does come a point where if people consume too much sodium or if there’s too much sodium in their bodies, then it becomes toxic and people can die.”

The same is true, Paulson said, of CO2 in the atmosphere: it’s necessary, but too much of it is clearly a bad thing.

The event, which can be viewed online, focused mainly on the Clean Air Act and whether it had been successful, and how successful it could be moving forward.  While Barton incorrectly argued that CO2 is not a dangerous pollutant and therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of the Clean Air Act, Browner – who was also the longest-serving EPA Administrator – pointed out that the agency is required by law to regulate anything it considers to be detrimental to environmental health.

Barton also repeated the Republican talking point that the EPA places an undue burden on businesses.  However, Browner pointed to the EPA’s review of the Clean Air Act, which detailed $2 trillion dollars in economic savings through 2022.  Browner has made similar arguments before to Stephen Colbert.

Barton expressed doubt that Congress would be legislating on the Clean Air Act at all in the current Congress.  Browner, however, noted that current law allows the EPA and the executive branch to make significant progress in combatting CO2 without needing Congress’s stamp of approval, and that the Supreme Court has upheld that right.

Luke Morgan is the executive Intern at the Center for American Progress.

In a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget, top House Republicans demanded the long-delayed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation for greenhouse gas pollution for very large emitters be killed. House energy committee chair Fred Upton (R-MI), former chair Joe Barton (R-TX), and energy and power subcommittee chair Ed Whitfield (R-KY) asked OMB acting director Jeffrey Zients to stay EPA’s regulation of new and modified power plants that produce more than 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide pollution:

We understand that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is currently reviewing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new and modified power plants through the New Source Performance Standards program. We write to request that you withhold the regulation from issuance. We are concerned about the regulation’s impact on jobs and the economy, and that it will not comply with all applicable Executive Orders, including the President’s Executive Order 13563 and its predecessor, Executive Order 12866.

“Our regulatory system must protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation,” begins Obama’s Executive Order 13563. “It must be based on the best available science.”

The EPA rule is the long-delayed result of a suit brought against the George W. Bush administration by several states in 2003, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. The Bush White House then blocked the efforts by the EPA to comply with the law, and the Obama administration has slowly rolled out a watered-down rule that won’t reach full implementation until 2016. Scientists have warned that the United States needs to rapidly reduce its carbon pollution no later than 2015 for human civilization to have a reasonable shot at maintaining a safe climate, based on the best available science.

However, in the fantasy world of Upton, Barton, and Whitfield, global warming doesn’t exist — so even the EPA’s soft limits on carbon pollution are a “back door cap-and-trade regime” that will “burden struggling businesses and families,” instead of one of the most important accomplishments of Obama administration to protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.

Electric utilities are the top contributors this cycle to Upton, Barton, and Whitfield. During this campaign cycle alone, the letter’s authors have received a combined $431,550 from electric power companies.

Download the anti-climate letter from Upton, Barton, and Whitfield to the OMB.

Leading manufacturer:  “The reality is, consumers will see no difference at all. The only difference they’ll see is lower energy bills because we’re creating more efficient incandescent bulbs.”

In a move that could be called anything but conservative, Republican lawmakers are set to bring a bill to the House floor next week that will repeal state and municipal rights to set efficiency standards for light bulbs.  The bill would unravel a piece of federal legislation that was strongly supported by light bulb manufacturers and has spurred innovation in the lighting industry.

The bill, sponsored by Texas Republican Joe Barton, would strip away any “federal, state or local requirement or standard regarding energy efficient lighting” that uses light bulbs containing mercury. In other words, all compact fluorescent bulbs.

Remember, in May, Barton, denied there was any “medical negative” from mercury emitted from coal power plants.  Now he fancies himself a protector of the public from a vastly smaller source of potential mercury poisoning. The reality: There is an extremely small amount of mercury in CFL bulbs. Even after more than 8 hours of exposure to a broken bulb, mercury levels are equal to eating a 6 oz can of tuna.

But that’s not what this is really about.

Barton’s bill targets the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which increases the efficiency of incandescent light bulbs by 27% through 2014. It was a completely non-controversial bill that had bi-partisan support, was strongly supported by light bulb manufacturers (and still is) and was signed into law by George W. Bush.

“When this bill was passed, it was passed by people who knew how to make light bulbs,” says Randall Moorhead, vice president of government affairs at Philips, a leading light bulb producer. “Everyone supported it. And since then, it’s created more choice for consumers – we have two incandescent bulbs on the market that weren’t there before.”

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No, the Barton apology hasn’t happened (yet), but otherwise the Yellowstone River oil spill is déjà vu all over again:

1. Warnings of danger ignored :  “Exxon had briefly shut the pipeline in May after local officials expressed concern about the pipeline’s safety, but determined that the level at which it was buried in the river bed—five to eight feet deep—was safe enough, and promptly resumed operations.”
2. Large spill in pristine area :  “An ExxonMobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River near Laurel, Mont. ruptured near midnight Friday and leaked hundreds of barrels of oil into the river, contaminating riverbanks and flooding fields for miles.”
3. Big Oil misleads public about speed of response :  “Exxon initially gave conflicting information about how long it took to shut off the valves on the leaking pipeline, saying to the public that it took about 30 minutes when in fact it took 49.”
4. Public uninformed about health consequences :  Rancher “Nilson said she and some of her family members breathed pungent vapors in the days after the spill, and now they’re concerned about the pollution’s impact on their groundwater. Nilson said she has been kept in the dark about the health effects of the oil and whether officials are monitoring health effects.”

And let’s not forget the tragically ironic link of this spill to extreme weather, as Naomi Klein reminds us in this must-read LA Times op-ed:

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A year ago today, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who has received $1.5 million in career campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, faced public outrage when he apologized to BP – who only two months earlier had been responsible for the worst environmental disaster in US history.  The Deepwater Horizon tragedy was still spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and devastated local economies, yet Barton found it necessary to extend a personal apology to the oil giant:

I am ashamed of what happened at the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation would be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown – in this case a $20 billion dollar shakedown…So I’m only speaking for myself, I’m not speaking for anybody else. But I apologize.

Watch it again:

While Republicans distanced themselves from the comments at the time, GOP treatment of the oil industry since the disaster in the Gulf has been reminiscent of an amnesiac. A year after the spill, the New Orleans’ Times Picayune reported that Congress has failed to act:

A year after the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, Congress has done virtually nothing to address the issues raised by the oil spill — from industry liability limits, to regulatory reform, to coastal restoration, to broader issues of energy policy.

Instead of addressing safety concerns that came out of the disaster in the Gulf, the Republicans ramped up their “oil above all” plans to do whatever would benefit the oil companies. Just this year, the House GOP has taken 13 votes that would directly benefit Big Oil, three of which maintained billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies and royalty relief for oil companies. Barton even defended these subsidies, arguing that “if you put so many disincentives against any U.S. manufacturing or production company, or oil and gas exploration company, they’ll go out of business.”

And just yesterday, House Republicans voted to slash funding for the agency tasked with patrolling oil markets to prevent market manipulation and corruption.

Even further, Republicans pushed bills that would short circuit the review  process essential to prevent future blow outs  and force sweeping new drilling in sensitive areas, which would “undercut” the administration’s ability to respond to or prevent future disasters and have no effect on gas prices.  All this flies in the face of recommendations of the President’s National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which stated unequivocally in its report that laws for spill prevention and response need to be improved before drilling is expanded.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said that the House’s package of bills “reflects a pre-spill mentality of speed over safety…We need to review the lessons from the BP spill, not lessen safety review.” And BOEMRE director Michael Bromwich, who oversees off shore drilling permitting and safety,  lashed out against H.R. 1229, the House-passed bill that “requires that the Interior Department act on offshore drilling permit requests within 30 days. The bill allows two 15-day extensions, but it specifies that permit would be deemed approved if the Interior Department does not act within 60 days.” Bromwich called the bill a “suicide pact:”

Well, that’s sort of a suicide pact, where we’re going to go in, we’re going to be forced to do lease sales with inadequate environmental analysis and we’ll be enjoined from those lease sales. Who wins then? Nobody.

But those votes don’t come cheap. BP celebrated the year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster by doling out campaign contributions to Republicans and Republican leadership (and one Democrat.) So far this year, oil and gas companies have contributed a whopping $2 million in campaign donations to Republicans, compared to $250,000 to Democrats.