The House Climate Solutions Caucus, which at its height last year swelled to 90 members, 45 from each political party, is set to reconvene under new Republican leadership and with smaller ranks. The bipartisan climate club was the brainchild of Florida Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Ted Deutch, but Curbelo lost his seat in November 2018, as did many of the group’s Republican members. Another Florida Republican, Rep. Francis Rooney, took over as GOP co-chair, and he told the Washington Examiner he hopes to propose “everyone in the caucus…vote for some environmental measure,” in order to “give the caucus a little more legitimacy.”
Last year, some members were criticized as using membership in the caucus to “green wash” their environmental record.
“I’d like to think we can continue to speak about these issues and get some more traction with some of the Republican members on climate change,” Rooney said in a phone interview Friday. “We have had a few Republicans say some things recently to speak up about climate change. It’s just that they haven’t gone as far as me. I am trying to rally support to get more people on board to where I am.”
Since its inception, the caucus only admitted even numbers of Democrats and Republicans in what is referred to as a “Noah’s Ark” approach to keep the group strongly bipartisan.
Related, Curbelo published this think piece in the Tampa Bay times over the weekend.
My @tbtimes column on taxing pollution as the most efficient, logical solution for meaningfully addressing #climatechange. https://t.co/UA70IK553F
Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) June 17, 2019
On Thursday, Rooney will appear on a panel at the Brookings Institute to talk about carbon pricing.