"Global warming MAY BE the greatest challenge of our time, setting at risk our economy, environment and national security,"

A big statement & a big MAY BE

meantime -- go get Saint Albert of Oscarville to go re- count those supposed vanishing polar bears

New House panel to study global warming - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - House Democrats, intent on making climate change a marquee issue, created a special panel Thursday to study and offer recommendations on how to deal with global warming.

The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, advanced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), was approved on a vote of 269-150. A majority of Republicans voted against it, arguing the committee was unnecessary or that its budget could better be used by the ethics committee.

"Global warming may be the greatest challenge of our time, setting at risk our economy, environment and national security," Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement, With the new committee, "the House is giving these issues the high visibility they deserve."

The committee, consisting of nine Democrats and six Republicans, will be chaired by Rep. Edward Markey (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass. It will hold hearings and recommend legislation, but, in a concession to existing committees, will not write legislation and will exist for only two years.

Pelosi's Jan. 18 announcement that she wanted a special climate change committee ran into quick resistance from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., who saw it as an infringement on his panel's responsibilities. In early February Dingell, the most senior Democrat in the House, and Pelosi reached agreement on the scope of the new panel, avoiding what could have been an embarrassing floor fight.

The climate committee was formally recognized as part of a vote on budgets for House committees in 2007 and 2008, up about 2.4 percent over the last session of Congress to $280 million. The global warming committee will have a two-year budget of $3.7 million.

Democrats, since assuming power in January, have held numerous hearings on global warming, in sharp contrast to Republicans who assigned the issue to a lower priority when they were in the majority. Former Vice President

Al Gore

Al Gore, who lectures on the consequences of global warming in a documentary that won an Academy Award, is to testify before Dingell's committee later this month.

Rep. Joe Barton (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, the top Republican on the Energy Committee, disparaged the new panel, saying in a statement that its only purpose was "serving as a platform for some members to grandstand and play to the constituencies that are so insistent that we destroy our economy in the name of political correctness."

Other Republicans chided Democrats for funding the global warming committee while cutting $1 million from the funds requested by the ethics committee, which ended up with $6.1 million.

They argued that Democrats came to power promising clean government and have imposed strict new ethics guidelines for lawmakers, and it was inconsistent not to provide the committee with adequate funds.

"Limiting the ethics committee budget limits the ethics committee's ability to do its job," said Rep. Doc Hastings (news, bio, voting record), R-Wash., senior Republican on the ethics, or Standards of Official Conduct, committee.

But the committee's chairman, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (news, bio, voting record), D-Ohio, said that while she could have used the extra money, "I'm a big girl. I lost that money, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to do my job."