House Dem: Climate change bigger health threat than AIDS, malaria

Just hours before a vote Wednesday on a GOP plan to block Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) called climate change a bigger public health threat than AIDS, malaria and pandemic flu.

Capps and several other liberal Democrats spoke out Wednesday morning in opposition to the legislation, authored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

The lawmakers, who were joined by officials from the American Lung Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Upton bill would harm public health. 

Capps pointed to a 2009 article in The Lancet, a medical journal, that said climate change could be the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”

“That makes climate change a bigger public health problem than AIDS, than malaria, than pandemic flu,” Capps said. “That’s why we need to take steps to address this cause behind this growing public health problem.”

Later, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) blasted the Upton bill as a “move by Republicans to reject science.”

Democrats intend to force a vote on an amendment calling on the House to accept a scientific finding by the EPA that climate change affects public health. Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee offered a similar amendment during the panel’s consideration of the bill.

The last-minute push to oppose the bill is part of a broader effort by some Democrats and environmental and public health groups to cast Republicans as opponents of public health protections and cohorts of industry.

But Republicans argue that EPA climate regulations will burden the economy and many in the GOP take issue with the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring and it is caused in large part by human activity.

Despite the Democrats’ opposition, the Upton legislation is expected to easily pass the House later Wednesday. But the bill faces major hurdles in the Senate.

Companion legislation has been offered as an amendment to Senate small business legislation by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Senate is expected to take up the amendment and three alternative amendments offered by Democrats that would limit rather than eliminate EPA’s climate authority later Wednesday

The Upton bill has some support from Democrats. Reps. Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Collin Peterson (Minn.) and Dan Boren (Okla.) are all co-sponsors of the bill. More Democrats are expected to vote in favor of the legislation, but just how many is unclear.

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