December 10, 2015 12:45 PM UTC

Gardner's Uneasy Ride On Cruz's Climate Crazy Train

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• by: Colorado Pols

Politico’s Darren Goode reports on a splashy hearing this week chaired by Texas Senator and GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, taking shots at climate science that Republican primary voters (and energy lobbyists) love even as smart Republicans cringe:

Ted Cruz took a break from the campaign trail on Tuesday to dive headlong into an aggressive Capitol Hill attack on mainstream climate science — the kind his fellow Republican presidential contenders have mainly sought to avoid.

Less than eight weeks before the crucial Iowa caucuses in which he’s leading the latest polls, Cruz convened a Senate subcommittee hearing where he criticized environmentalists as “alarmists” and questioned “the objectivity of climate research.” Also joining the hearing were a half-dozen Democrats, only too eager to get another chance to lampoon the GOP as a party that opposes science…

Cruz’s main thrust was an argument that has long been a talking point among right-wing climate skeptics — that some satellite records show that global temperatures have barely budged since 1998. (Both federal and U.N. reports say 2015 is actually on track to surpass last year as the warmest on record, based on a wide swath of ocean and land measurements.) And, he argues, polar ice is not shrinking as fast as climate scientists have predicted.

The reaction to Cruz’s “hearing” to cast doubts on the science underlying the general scientific consensus that human activity is affecting the climate from fellow Republicans is notable in this story, with moderates like Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska not impressed, while the author notes that Cruz’s position is in line with what Sen. Jim “Global Warming Hoax” Inhofe has been saying for years.

And that’s where Colorado’s freshman GOP Sen. Cory Gardner enters the story, as Goode continues his report from the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness on which both Cruz and Gardner sit:

Cruz wasn’t getting much vocal support from fellow Republicans in the hearing room either. Two Republicans on the subcommittee, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana, joined Cruz on the dais ahead of the hearing, although Gardner left before opening statements. (Gardner had been expecting an FBI briefing on the post-Thanksgiving mass shooting in Colorado Springs.)

Gardner had said before the hearing that he would welcome “a focus on the economic impact” of the administration’s climate policies. On the other hand, he said, “I just don’t know if that’s the direction the hearing is going to take.” [Pols emphasis]

From Gardner’s point of view, it’s much more convenient politically to complain about “economic losses” from policies that address climate change than it is to go right for the proverbial jugular as Cruz does and question the science of climate change itself. That’s because Gardner is smart enough to understand that as a politician, there’s only so far he can go bashing actual scientists before he looks like a full-on ignoramus.

Fortunately there’s Ted Cruz, for whom that’s not a problem!

In the end, though, Cruz’s ham-fisted attacks on the science of climate change only underscore the folly of Gardner’s refusal to confront the issue for fear of “economic losses.” Each message has it audience, and both help ensure nothing gets done.