Podcast: Congressional Climate Change?

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The shifting political winds in Washington may have a far-reaching impact on a wide range of issues: health care, tax cuts, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But what about climate change?

Very little was said about global warming during the campaign season, other than the barrage of negative ads by Republicans accusing their Democratic opponents of supporting “cap and tax” legislation. Kentucky Senator-elect Rand Paul even went so far as to criticize President Obama for giving “credibility and credence” to dictators like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe by supporting global action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

And then there is this statistic: Of all the Republicans newly elected to the U.S. Senate last week, only one has openly accepted the science behind anthropogenic climate change (Senator-elect Mark Kirk, of Illinois). As much as half of the new Republican majority in the House has either outright denied the existence of climate change or questioned whether the warming of the planet is caused by humans.

To say the least, congressional action on comprehensive climate change legislation in the next two years seems unlikely. But the results of the midterm elections could have much more damaging consequences for environmental legislation, including efforts by Democrats to increase oversight and regulation of the off-shore drilling industry after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf.

To sort through all of this, Need to Know’s Alison Stewart spoke with Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard. Sheppard covered the elections on Tuesday from Colorado, where she followed the closely watched battle between Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and his Republican challenger, Ken Buck.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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