This Republican Wants To Stop Debating Climate Change: ‘I’d Just Like To Be Prepared’

First published on ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 blogs of 2010.

For a Republican from Florida, Rep. Curt Clawson does not sound like a Republican from Florida — at least when it comes to human-caused climate change.

At a Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, the freshman Tea Party Congressman seemed to part ways with his colleagues on the polarizing issue. Instead of denying the science behind climate change, Clawson said he’d rather not have that debate, and instead talk about solutions.

“All the chatter about is climate change real or not, I’m not sure how that helps my constituents,” said Clawson, whose district includes areas of South Florida that are particularly susceptible to sea level rise and storm surge. “I’d just like to be prepared for the next hurricane.”

Of course, Clawson didn’t say he accepts the science behind climate change. When contacted by phone, his spokesman David James declined to elaborate on his position. “The congressman’s words speak from themselves,” he said.

But his comments are notable if only because Florida seems flooded with high-profile Republican politicians who outwardly deny that the effects of climate change pose a threat to the vulnerable state. State Governor Rick Scott, Sen. Marco Rubio and former state Governor Jeb Bush all either outwardly deny the science or will not talk about it. Scott has even been accused of banning the term “climate change” from all official state communications.

Wednesday’s hearing was called to examine the Department of Homeland Security’s focus on climate change as a security threat. In its latest Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, the DHS said natural hazards driven by climate change could pose threats to infrastructure, thereby risking national security in some parts of the country.

But the hearing’s title implied that DHS’s focus on climate was “misplaced,” and multiple Republicans on the committee questioned why the agency would invest taxpayer dollars into assessing the security risks of global warming.

Clawson, however, did not seem to object to the idea of preparing for climate risks. Instead of questioning the science, Clawson asked DHS Acting Assistant Secretary of Strategy, Planning, Analysis and Risk Thomas Smith about how the agency uses data from NASA and NOAA. Smith responded that NOAA provides DHS with top-line science on things like sea level, and then DHS maps out that data to find the statistical risk of catastrophic events that could impact national security. Clawson seemed pleased with the answer.

“The more ya’ll concentrate on execution, and actually delivering the goods … and less on this debate [over whether climate change is real], I think the better off we’ll all be,” he said.

While Clawson’s statement does seem like a slight evolution for a Republican on the topic of climate change, it’s unlikely that environmentalists will be impressed. A desire to fix the symptoms of climate change without acknowledging that humans are causing those symptoms means that policies will only attempt to fix damage, and not seek to prevent it through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, Florida can try to adapt all it wants, but those efforts will mean nothing if the ocean keeps on rising.

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