GOP unveils climate agenda with familiar proposals

Expanding the use of natural gas and exporting it to allies and other countries is a central pillar to a climate agenda House Republicans unveiled Thursday that runs counter to the overwhelming advice from scientists.

Republicans said they would unveil six elements of their energy and climate plan in the next two months in greater detail.

There are six issues the group said it was focusing on, according to a summary of the agenda, which reads: “Unlock American Resources, American Innovation, Let America Build, Beat China and Russia, Conservation with a Purpose, and Build Resilient Communities.” 

 “If Republicans earn back the House majority in the fall, we will be ready to enact that strategy and ease the suffering of working Americans’ wallets,” Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., said.

The proposal comes on the heels of a series of warnings of climate peril, including in May, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit its highest mark in human history, surpassing 420 parts per million, according to data from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. By reaching that threshold, humans are halfway to doubling carbon dioxide levels since the Industrial Revolution and on course to easily surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius in warming widely considered by climate scientists to be manageable rather than deleterious.