Texas Republicans have a new policy on climate change: There is no climate change.
While traditionally the state’s GOP has focused on abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency while ignoring climate change, this year’s temporary policy platform is taking it one step further, calling for party members to explicitly dismiss it, too.
“While we all strive to be good stewards of the earth, 'climate change' is a political agenda which attempts to control every aspect of our lives. We urge government at all levels to ignore any plea for money to fund global climate change or 'climate justice' initiatives,” the platform writes.
The shift comes the same week as the president announces the biggest ever government effort to control carbon emissions. On Monday, the president announced a plan to institute EPA regulations that would cut carbon emissions by 30% by 2030.
Republicans have asked the administration to abandon the ruling because they say it will raise electricity rates, which the party fears would punish the poor and elderly (though those claims have been largely found to be false).
Denying climate change has become an increasingly common GOP platform: at a Republican Senate debate in North Carolina in May, all the candidates said they did not believe climate change existed.