Climate Hawk: GOP Will “Pay In The Future” For Ignoring Climate Change
A new bicameral task force will make the case for Republicans to act on climate change. Another cap and trade bill not likely, says Whitehouse.
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of Congress' few outspoken environmental advocates, is making a new argument for legislative action on climate change: Lawmakers who oppose future measures to reverse global warming, Whitehouse argues, will pay a price — in votes.
Whitehouse, who last Thursday announced the formation of a bicameral task force to address the issue, compared climate change to social issues like gay rights and immigration reform that Democrats claim are moving to the center.
"I'm hoping we can convince Republicans that this is a big generational issue and, like being on the wrong side of immigration and gay rights, there will be a huge political price to pay in the future for being on the wrong side of climate change," said Whitehouse, the Democratic junior Senator from Rhode Island, in an interview with BuzzFeed.
"There is absolutely no doubt that climate change is going to be a dominant political issue before long," Whitehouse added. "People who have been recalcitrant servants of the pollutants industry will end up being disgraced and swept out of office."
The question is, he said, "whether or not the timeline for that is soon enough that we can actually do something."