http://pjmedia.com/blog/senate-turns-focus-to-planning-for-extreme-global-warming-events/?singlepage=true
Senate Turns Focus to Planning for Extreme Global-Warming Events
But with such a contentious issue on the table for the first time in years, at a hearing chaired by Barbara Boxer, the hearing turned into a debate on climate change itself.
The first Senate hearing on climate change in years centered around an attempt to tie extreme weather — from the derecho that knocked out power this summer in the D.C. area to the drought ravaging the Midwest — to global warming.
But with such a contentious issue on the table at a hearing chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), senators barely touched on the stated hearing purpose of determining how communities could steel themselves against calamitous acts of Mother Nature.
“Last month at Washington Reagan National Airport, a US Airways regional jet became stuck in on the tarmac when temperatures over 100 degrees melted the asphalt. There was a D.C. Metro train derailment just up the road last month after tracks buckled in the extreme heat,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said at this morning’s Environment and Public Works hearing.
“We need to adapt our water infrastructure, our transportation infrastructure, and our electrical grid” for the coming “consequences of climate change,” Cardin added. “We need to help our farmers to adapt so that our food supply – and that of the world – remains reliable. We need to adapt our coastal regions and prepare for the sea-level rise that is already beginning to threaten some of our coastal communities. We need to improve our public health infrastructure to deal with the heat-related illnesses that result from these extreme temperatures.”
As the hearing came on the heels of Monday sparring on the Senate floor between two committee members over global warming — Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — the debate over whether the science supports climate-change models took center stage.
Sanders kicked off the week by taking to the floor to counter Inhofe’s assertion that global warming is a hoax. “Many who take climate science seriously dismiss Sen. Inhofe. I believe that is a huge mistake,” Sanders said. “For better or worse, when Sen. Inhofe speaks, the Republican Party follows. And when the Republican Party follows, it is impossible to get real work done in the Congress.”