Utah’s legislators are continuing to raise the temperature on Climate Change issues, putting Utah in the spotlight on environmental issues.
KSL TV has a video piece on yesterday’s vote here.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported today:
In a 4-2 vote over the objections of critics — including former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and a large contingent of university students — the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee approved Rep. Kerry Gibson’s nonbinding measure.
It calls on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to freeze efforts to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions until completion of “a full and independent investigation” of climate-change science.
Read the rest of the article here, where even BYU scientists are quoted as opposing the resolution.
Drew Thompson, of the Stop HJR12 Facebook Group distributed this message to the group’s supporters yesterday:
Dear friends,
Thanks to all those who attended the meeting this morning….Unfortunately we were not successful in stopping the resolution at that meeting, but not all hope is lost. The resolution will now go the senate. We should now direct our voices to our respective senators via letters, phone calls, emails, etc. I will try to find out when the actual vote will occur and will notify you all so we can get as many people as possible up on the hill at that time to oppose the resolution.
There was an incredible energy at the meeting this morning. I hope we can harness that passion to enact lasting change within our state and across the country.
Adding fuel to the climate change fire, legislators are looking at yet another resolution, that in essence, denies the reality of climate change: HJR 21 Joint Resolution on Energy Policy . Thompson continues:
We may also want to start turning our attention to HJR 21. It is a resolution urging the governor to withdraw from the Western Climate Initiative and will have a more immediate and profound effect on policy within the state than HJR 12. It is currently in the House of Representatives and will likely be voted on this upcoming week. While you are contacting your senators about HJR 12 you should consider contacting your representatives about HJR 21.
The motives for these resolutions are clearly about the economy and not about saving the planet. There is no discussion about how to balance the two. Our planet’s future is at stake and without a planet there will be no jobs to protect.
Students from the University of Utah and Westminster College had this to say to legislators:
Jillian Edmunds, a student at Westminster College, compared scientists who doubt man-made climate change to historians who don’t believe in the Holocaust, while University of Utah student Derek Snarr, blasted the committee for ignoring experts.
Both Snarr and Edmunds warned that decisions made by the Legislature now would have an impact on later generations.
“What we’re saying here, as future generations, is … ‘are you willing to sit here, do nothing except the status quo, and force us to face the consequences?’ ” Edmunds asked.
View previous posts on climate change legislation here.
(cross-posted to Utah Legislature Watch)
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 