House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi confirmed that she asked her colleagues to reinstate a select committee to address "the climate crisis," part of the party's plan to focus more on the impacts of global warming after winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. |
"I have recommended to my House Democratic colleagues that we reinstate the select committee to address the climate crisis," Pelosi said in statement released Nov. 13. "House Democrats ran on and won on our bold campaign for a $1 trillion investment in our infrastructure that will make our communities more resilient to the climate crisis, while creating 16 million new good-paying jobs across the country."
In March 2007, the Democrat-led House voted to create the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, despite objections from many Republicans.
The committee did not have the authority to draft energy or climate legislation, which remained the responsibility of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and other committees of jurisdiction. But the select panel held hearings and coordinated information on relevant topics, including assisting with the formation of doomed carbon cap-and-trade legislation known as the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which passed the House but stalled in the U.S. Senate. Republicans terminated the selection committee after taking back control of the House in the November 2010 midterm elections.
With Democrats set to lead the House in early 2019, the party is hoping to conduct oversight on and potentially introduce bills to address the impact of climate change on communities and the economy. But enacting climate legislation will require support from Republicans, who hold the White House and will retain a majority in the Senate in the new Congress.
The potential formation of a select committee on climate change comes as the House's Climate Solutions Caucus weighs its next steps. The caucus' GOP co-founder, U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., lost his re-election race on Nov. 6, as did several other Republican caucus members. The group is designed to have an equal number of GOP and Democratic members, meaning it will need to find replacements for the lost Republican members or trim the number of Democratic participants.

