House climate panel will study drilling ban backed by 2020 Dems

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), chairwoman of the special House committee studying the impacts of climate change, said Friday her panel will examine a proposal by 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to ban new fossil fuel drilling on public lands and waters.

A number of other 2020 Democratic candidates — including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) — also have endorsed a moratorium on drilling on public lands. 

“We’re going to examine that in the Climate Crisis Committee because what the scientists are telling us now is that we’ve got to cut our carbon pollution dramatically,” Castor said during an appearance on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” that is set to air later Friday.{mosads}

“If we are going to have a just transition [to clean energy], especially for communities across the country that have a lot of jobs in fossil fuels, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to expand extraction, especially on public lands,” she continued. “It’s an important issue moving forward in the context of how we cut our carbon pollution.”

Several liberal lawmakers have argued that the government should ban oil and fossil fuel drilling if it wants to mitigate the effects of climate change. A recent U.S. Geological Survey report found that the extraction and burning of fossil fuels from federal lands accounted for nearly one-quarter of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions between 2005 and 2014.

With Democrats taking control of the House last fall, the incoming Speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), named Castor, a close ally, to lead a new select committee examining climate change. That panel does not have the authority to write legislation, but it is tasked with offering policy recommendations to the full House Democratic Caucus by next year.

“That gives us time to take a look at [a ban],” Castor said, “but a lot of the committees now are on the front lines of turning back the damage of what the Trump administration is doing to clean air and clean water.”

Castor’s comments came a day after the House passed her bill to block President Trump from pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. But the legislation is going nowhere in the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed to be a “Grim Reaper” for what he deemed socialist bills coming out of the House.

That new nickname for McConnell has irked Castor, a seven-term lawmaker from the Tampa area who has called climate change — and related extreme weather events — extremely dangerous for American families and businesses.

“I’m very disappointed that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling himself the Grim Reaper,” she said. “He says he is not going to hear any important national security, health legislation, especially climate change.

“What a terrible thing to say, that you’re the Grim Reaper.”

The interview with Castor airs on C-SPAN at 10:15 p.m. EDT Friday and again at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. EDT on Sunday.