Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts oversaw enactment of that state’s initial climate change plan, is quietly assembling a small group of GOP senators to shift the narrative on climate change and come forward with a legislative option Republicans can support. “There’s no question that we’re experiencing climate change and that humans are a significant contributor to that,” Romney told The Hill. “In my view, the course forward is going to require innovation and technology breakthrough because nothing I’ve seen is going to reverse the warming trend other than that.”
Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) are part of the conversation. “We’ve spoken about some ideas as to how we might encourage that,” Romney said of his GOP colleagues. “I’ve talked to Romney,” Graham confirmed, calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal a “kind of a ridiculous proposal,” but acknowledging that “denying the problem is equally as bad.” According to the Hill, solutions on the table include incentivizing businesses to develop new carbon emissions reduction technologies and economical ways to remove carbon pollution from the atmosphere.
“Romney had the best line of anybody: ‘We better hope it’s man-made, because if it’s not we’re in trouble,'” Graham said. “That would be my approach, for the party to acknowledge that climate change is a problem.”