SEVEN Republicans Vote With Democrats to Fight Climate Chang

[Oscar]

7 Republicans Joined Senate Democrats in Vote to Fight Climate Change

[ http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/30/republic ... 2-85909581 ]

Rhea Suh, Natural Resources Defense Council | March 30, 2015 8:56 am | Comments

Senate Republican leaders had been eyeing a raft of votes into the wee hours last Friday as a chance to put a spike in the heart of President Obama’s plan to confront the dangers of climate change. [ http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/ ]

Things didn’t go quite as planned.

Seven Republicans joined all Senate Democrats in voting to tie climate change to national security and call for action to cut carbon pollution and invest in efficiency and renewable energy. A GOP proposal to stop the president’s Clean Power Plan dead in its tracks wasn’t even brought up for a vote.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell couldn’t muster a filibuster-proof majority for a low-bore proposal of his own to encourage states to defy the president’s plan to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s dirty power plants.

Make no mistake, Republican leaders remain committed to derailing progress on climate change while offering no plan of their own for confronting the central environmental challenge of our time.

They’re as determined as ever to push a big polluter agenda to weaken protections for our air, water, wildlife and lands and hamstring the enforcement of common sense safeguards.

There are clear signs, though, that at least some Republicans have become wary of McConnell’s radical opposition to the action we need to protect future generations from the dangers of climate change.

That could mark the beginning of an important shift. What’s needed now is to turn momentum into action.

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