Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Obama EPA Chief Can’t Say Whether Climate Models Were False Or Not

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) grilled EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy earlier today and solicited a stunning admission.

Sessions: “When we go to our states, the group we have the most complaints about from our constituents—whether it’s highway people, whether it’s farmers, whether it’s energy people—is the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s an [agency of] extraordinary overreach. And you apparently are unaware of the pushback that’s occurring in the real world… So now you say that we’ve got a crisis and there are dangers out there. Let me ask you this. There was an article from Mr. [Bjorn] Lomborg… from the Copenhagen Institute. He says, along with Dr. Pielke from Colorado, that we’ve had fewer droughts in recent years. Do you dispute that?”

McCarthy: “I don’t know in what context he’s making statements like that…”

Sessions: “What about hurricanes. Have we had more or less hurricanes in the last decade?” …

McCarthy: “In terms of landing those hurricanes on land, I cannot answer that question. It’s a very complicated issue.”

Sessions: “It’s not complicated on how many have landed. We’ve had a dramatic reduction in the number. We’ve gone a decade without a hurricane [Category] 3 or above… Would you acknowledge that over the last 18 years, that the increase in temperature has been very little, and that it is well below, matter of fact 90 percent below most of the environmental models that showed how fast temperature would increase?” …

McCarthy: “I do not know what the models actually are predicting that you are referring to…”

Sessions: “This is a stunning development, that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency—who should know more than anybody else in the world, who is imposing hundreds of billions of dollars in cost to prevent this climate temperature increase—doesn’t know whether their projections have been right or wrong.”


Hat tip: Stephen.

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