Inhofe: Fiorina ?Is Supporting? My Push To Gut The Clean Air Act, Agrees Climate Change Is A ?Hoax?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 10th, 2010 4:37 am by HL
Inhofe: Fiorina ?Is Supporting? My Push To Gut The Clean Air Act, Agrees Climate Change Is A ?Hoax?
Today on Capitol Hill, Americans for Prosperity, the corporate front group founded and funded by David Koch of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, hosted an event to urge the passage of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to gut the Clean Air Act’s power to regulate carbon emissions. Several Republican Senators came to the AFP event […]
Today on Capitol Hill, Americans for Prosperity, the corporate front group founded and funded by David Koch of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, hosted an event to urge the passage of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to gut the Clean Air Act’s power to regulate carbon emissions. Several Republican Senators came to the AFP event to encourage support for the resolution, which was drafted by lobbyists from the coal and oil industry.
After the event, ThinkProgress spoke to one of the speakers, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), about his support for Carly Fiorina (R-CA), the U.S. Senate candidate to emerge from the primary last night. Inhofe gave Fiorina an early endorsement, and his nephew, Fred Davis, created the infamous “demon sheep” ads for Fiorina’s campaign.
Inhofe, who has been described as Washington’s “the last flat-earther” for his strident denial of climate change, said Fiorina “is supporting what I am supporting.” He elaborated that Fiorina both supports eviscerating the EPA’s ability to enforce the Clean Air Act, and that she is supportive of his beliefs “in terms of the whole global warming hoax.” He then added that he is “very proud of her”:
TP: I was wondering if Carly actually supports this effort to change the regulatory power of the Clean Air Act that you’re talking about today?
INHOFE: No, Carly’s already taken a stand on this.
TP: Oh, so she’s supporting this?
INHOFE: She is supporting what I am supporting. In fact Carly made a statement yesterday that was the strongest statement I’ve heard yet in terms of the whole global warming hoax. So I was very proud of her.
Watch it:
Not long ago, Fiorina believed in climate change and supported efforts to deal with carbon pollution. On Fox News last year, Fiorina praised Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) for crafting bipartisan clean energy legislation to achieve “energy independence” and “addressing climate change as equally important goals.” Fiorina also campaigned for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2008 because he promised to “create a cap-and-trade system that will encourage the development of alternative energy sources.”
Fiorina has quickly dismissed her once-held climate change beliefs to satisfy the far right, science-denying wing of the conservative movement. She initially flipped, telling reporters that people need the “courage” to question climate change science. Then, she ran an ad mocking Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) belief in climate change, with the narrator claiming that the world’s catastrophic changes in temperature are simply due to the “weather.” But now with Inhofe claiming Fiorina agrees fully with his belief that climate change is a “hoax” and that Congress must radically weaken the Clean Air Act, the metamorphosis of Fiorina into full right-wing sycophant is complete.
Rep. Virginia Foxx: I ?Certainly Agree? That We ?Need A Dragnet Put Out? For Undocumented Immigrants
Last month, Republicans launched a “listening” campaign called America Speaking Out, an effort to allow the public to give them ideas on their national agenda. As part of the campaign, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) — who has gained notoriety for her hateful bigotry — hosted a tele-townhall last night to give her North Carolina constituents […]
Last month, Republicans launched a “listening” campaign called America Speaking Out, an effort to allow the public to give them ideas on their national agenda. As part of the campaign, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) — who has gained notoriety for her hateful bigotry — hosted a tele-townhall last night to give her North Carolina constituents “a seat at the table.” During the event, Foxx endorsed one caller’s paranoid fear of immigrants:
CALLER: First, I appreciate what you do. Watching TV and seeing all the illegals streaming into the United States and hearing that they’re not only from Mexico but from Afghanistan and other countries, I wonder how many terrorists are in our own country right now plotting to kill us.
FOXX: A lot…a lot.
CALLER: I want the borders to Mexico sealed tight and I want a dragnet put out for these people to see if we can’t catch ‘em.
FOXX: You are very much in the majority in this country and you and I certainly agree on that. I would encourage you to let your senators know that…again we have no disagreement on that.
Listen here:
Other callers seized the opportunity to speak out about their own offensive opinions on the issues of the day. One caller argued that a better crackdown on companies “hiring illegals” would “cause illegals to deport themselves” and “get rid of all the anchor babies.” Another denounced welfare as a program for “young women who make a virtual career out of having babies out of wedlock and getting paid for it.”
America Speaking Out projects are a magnet for the “odd and offensive.” At his America Speaking Out town hall in California last week, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who chairs the initiative, heard from conservatives who celebrated Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “inhumane” and “brutal” tent prisons as good policy.
As ThinkProgress previously noted, the GOP’s America Speaking Out website discourages “suggestions on amnesty or a path to legalization for illegal immigrants” but seems to welcome anti-immigrant rhetoric.
