By Erika Rosenthal
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (click here) often asserts that he’s not a scientist, and hence can’t opine on climate change. Yet opine he does, and often. Perhaps it’s the millions of dollars he’s received in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry?
The United States is currently joining with scores of other nations in Paris to negotiate a bold, vital plan to counteract climate change. Perennial doubters like McConnell—among the most powerful men in Washington— are trying to undermine President Obama’s mission in France, but we’re confident the rest of the world sees right through him.
Here are our top ten picks for most outrageous McConnell quotes on the state of our environment:
1. “For everybody who thinks it’s warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn’t.”
2. “I’m not a scientist.” We all know that. It is completely obvious.
3. In 2010, during a record snowstorm in Washington, D.C., McConnell asked, “Where’s Al Gore now?”
4, “I don’t buy” that climate is changing.
5. McConnell warned foreign leaders last spring to "proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal” on climate with Obama, noting that "two-thirds of the U.S. federal government"—Congress and the Supreme Court—hasn't signed off on the president's Clean Power Plan.
6. The climate change agreement between the United States and China "requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years."
7. McConnell opened his campaign on March 3 with an op-ed article published in The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky with the headline, “States should reject Obama mandate for clean-power regulations.”
8: “Even if the job-killing and likely illegal Clean Power Plan were fully implemented, the United States could not meet the targets laid out in this proposed new plan.”
9. When asked by the Associated Press if the Senate has any obligation to address global warming, McConnell replied, “Look, my first obligation is to protect my people … who are hurting as the result of what this administration is doing."
10. In our humble opinion, Senator McConnell often says it best by, well you know, #mcconnelling.
