Jill Richardson from La Vida Locavore has a great roundup of all the bills the new Republican House busily introduced on its first day. The list is mostly a flurry of bills to undo the major accomplishments of Obama's first two years; namely repealing health-care reform (there are several) and financial regulatory reform.
Among the bigger ones, though, is another bill from Alaska's sole representative, Donald Young to take polar bears off the endangered species list. The bears were listed under George W. Bush, despite the fact that new hunting restrictions kept the population relatively stable, because of the rapid pace at which we're losing polar sea ice. The bears are projected to continue to lose habitat, but if you're a global warming denier then you likely think, as Young does, that listing the bears is "incredibly irresponsible."
Of course, he's not the only Republican who thinks climate change is a fraud: There are plenty of bills to prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, through amending the Clean Air Act or preventing the EPA from sending any of its money to do so. What's scary is how successful they could actually be.
-- Monica Potts
