{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://dennyheck.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/republicans-in-washington-dc-seek-to-undermine-obama-s-climate-initiatives", "Republicans in Washington, D.C., seek to undermine Obamas climate initiatives in Paris", "2015-12-01", "2015", "2015-12", "Democrat", "House", "WA", "Denny Heck", "H001064", "dennyheck.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Republicans in Congress moved Tuesday to block and undermine President Obama\u2019s moves to curb carbon emissions from power plants, just as Obama was pledging in Paris to make the United States a global leader in efforts to curb human-caused climate change.\nThe House of Representatives passed two Senate resolutions of \u201cdisapproval\u201d to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from setting rules to reduce emissions from existing coal-burning plants, and to keep the EPA from imposing rules on new or modified power plants.\nThe action was symbolic \u2014 Obama is likely to veto the legislation \u2014 but its message was made clear by Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Kentucky.\n\u201cWe want the world to know that there is disagreement with the President on this issue,\u201d said Whitfield, the coal state congressman who chairs a subcommittee on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.\nThe House votes were largely on party lines, although 10 Republican House members voted against denying the EPA authority to cut carbon emissions at new power plants.\nAll six of Washington\u2019s Democratic House members voted not to eliminate the EPA\u2019s powers to cut pollution. Three Republican members from this state \u2014 U.S. Reps. Dave Reichert, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse, \u2014 voted to roll back the President\u2019s climate initiatives.\nRep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., did not vote. She represents the Centralia area, site of a power plant that is the state\u2019s No. 1 greenhouse gas emitter. The plant is being slowly phased out under an agreement with its Canadian owner.\n\u201cForging a worldwide agreement to slow the effects of climate change is hard enough without House Republicans actively working against those critical global efforts,\u201d said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. He cited recent negotiations in which China\u2019s President Xi Jinping has agreed to hold down increases in carbon emission and transition toward clean energy.\nRep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., took to the House floor and lampooned the \u201cRepublican propaganda machine\u201d posing the issue as a choice between jobs and the environment.\n\u201cI\u2019ve heard the same (negative) arguments today that I listened to when they said we\u2019ve got to stop smoking on airplanes,\u201d McDermott joked. The truth be told, he added is that the \u201ccoal boys, the power boys, they don\u2019t want anybody to tell them to clean up.\u201d\nIt wasn\u2019t always so with Republicans. President George H.W. Bush pledged in 1988 to be the \u201cenvironmental president,\u201d and used Grand Teton National Park as backdrop in signing amendments that strengthened the Clean Air Act.\nBut GOP attitudes have hardened, particularly against what\u2019s seen as a usurping of power by the White House in forging ahead with the Obama climate initiatives.\n\u201cYou\u2019re not going to get anybody\u2019s attention unless you do something forcefully, and I think Congress acted forcefully today to make sure people are listening to both sides of the debate,\u201d Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, told the Politico website.\nThe Pacific Northwest has been at the forefront of local efforts to curb greenhouse emissions. Even religious denominations are fielding sustainability efforts. The Seattle First Baptist Church announced Tuesday that it is going carbon neutral.\n\u201cThe world is beating a path to those cities which are sustainable and livable,\u201d Portland Mayor Charlie Hales told a media telebriefing Tuesday.\nPart of the reason is that impacts of climate change are being seen and felt from Washington\u2019s more acidic waters to burning and dying forests, to its receding mountain glaciers.\n\u201cIn our area, we see the impacts of climate change on a daily basis: Our salmon are dying due to higher water temperatures, the snowpack at Mt. Rainier is disappearing, our waters are becoming more polluted, and the increasingly dry, hot summers are causing massive forest fires,\u201d said U.S. Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://dennyheck.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/republicans-in-washington-dc-seek-to-undermine-obama-s-climate-initiatives"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.5132219307124615, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}