A growing number of Republicans are working to
address climate change.
Lisa
Friedman
By Lisa
Friedman
June 23,
2021
When
Representative John Curtis quietly approached fellow Republicans to invite them
to discuss climate change at a clandestine meeting in his home state of Utah,
he hoped a half dozen might attend.
The guest
list blew past expectations as lawmakers heard about the gathering and asked to
be included. For two days in February, 24 Republicans gathered in a ballroom of
the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City where they brainstormed ways to get
their party to engage on a planetary problem it has ignored for decades.
“Some came
with the promise of being anonymous,” Mr. Curtis said in an interview. “It’s
terrible that Republicans can’t even go talk about it without being
embarrassed.”
For four
years under President Donald J. Trump, even uttering the phrase “climate
change” was verboten for many Republicans. His administration scrubbed the
words from federal websites, tried to censor testimony to Congress and mocked
the science linking rising fossil fuel emissions to a warming planet.
Now, many
in the Republican Party are coming to terms with what polls have been saying
for years: independents, suburban voters and especially young Republicans are
worried about climate change and want the government to take action.
“There is a
recognition within the G.O.P. that if the party is going to be competitive in
national elections, in purple states and purple districts, there needs to be
some type of credible position on climate change,” said George David Banks, a
former Trump adviser and now a senior fellow at the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy
Center, a centrist Washington think tank. Republicans realize it is now “a
political liability” to dismiss or avoid discussing climate change, he said.
In Utah,
where the furtive February meeting occurred, a group of state Republican
lawmakers this month called for polluters to pay a price for emitting carbon
dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas.
The same
week in Miami, a group of young Republicans held what was billed as the first
rally for “conservative” climate action. They carried signs that read “This Is
What an Environmentalist Looks Like.”
On Capitol
Hill, Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, plans to start a Republican
task force on climate change, his staff confirmed.
And on
Wednesday Mr. Curtis plans to announce the formation of the Conservative
Climate Caucus, aimed at educating his party about global warming and
developing policies to counter what the caucus terms “radical progressive
climate proposals.” So far 38 Republican House members have joined, his staff
said.
Lisa
Friedman reports on federal climate and environmental policy from Washington.
She has broken multiple stories about the Trump administration’s efforts to
repeal climate change regulations and limit the use of science in policymaking.
@LFFriedman
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