Indiana Senator Mike Braun reached across the aisle to join Delaware Senator Chris Coons to formally launch the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus. The two had announced their intention to form a climate working group similar to a House counterpart earlier in September. In an op-ed placed in The Hill today, the two founding members called their assembly “a bipartisan group of senators who, like the Americans we serve, believe Congress should play a central role in guiding America’s 21st century energy economy and addressing the challenge of a changing climate. Our caucus seeks to take the politics out of this important issue. Instead, members will commit to an honest dialogue, through which we can develop solutions that solidify American environmental leadership, promote American workers, and make meaningful progress on protecting our environment.”
At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing last week, Braun, a member of the committee, said climate change will be “a defining issue going forward…We just need to figure out how we do it in a way that we can pay for it, that everyone is engaged and also how we get the rest of the world involved in doing it, I think, with the conscientious effort and speed you’re going to see in this country.”
While the full roster of the caucus is unclear at this time, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski announced she’s a member. “I think we’ve got a lot to contribute to the conversation just in terms of what’s going on with technologies that are going to help make a difference,” she said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
I rarely say this, but let’s end on this great tweet (an oxymoron, I know):
In its current state, our national conversation on this issue is too polarized, toxic, and unproductive. In this environment, American leadership is sidelined, instead replaced by partisan bickering. To us, this is unacceptable.” ?@thehill? https://t.co/Dsdgbfn7Lw
Senator Mike Braun (@SenatorBraun) October 23, 2019