ProgressOhio

Last week, the EPA “formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that endanger public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that will lead to the regulation of the gases for the first time in the United States.” Following the announcement, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) immediately issued a statement claiming that it was “nothing more than a back-door attempt to enact a national energy tax.”

On ABC’s This Week yesterday, host George Stephanopoulos pressed Boehner to explain what the Republican plan was to deal with climate change. First, Boehner said they believed in an “all of the above energy strategy.” But when Stephanopoulos noted that their drilling plan “doesn’t do anything when it comes to emissions,” Boehner called the idea that carbon dioxide is dangerous “comical“:

Boehner said:

George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide

Almost comical?  How about completely tragic?

One of the GOP’s senior leaders thinks this debate is about whether carbon dioxide is a carcinogen?  And thinks carcinogens harm the environment, rather than people?  And thinks that cows are of concern because they produce carbon dioxide, rather than methane?

It bears repeating:  Anti-science conservatives Like Minority Leader John Boehner are now the cement shoes on the American people, pulling us down into the ocean hot, acidic dead zone.