Nullification is Not Just For Health Care Reform

The Gooch is losing it. Why waste time on a resolution denying global climate change when you could introduce one barring local governments from obeying the Law of Gravity?

It's snowing in January, which seems to be all the proof the Gooch needs that climate change is a hoax.

The chairman of the committee that deals with environmental issues in the Kentucky House of Representatives has introduced a resolution that questions the science of climate change.

The resolution proposed by Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence, says state and local government agencies should be banned from limiting carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas that comes from burning coal and motor vehicle tailpipe emissions.

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Joint resolutions only have the force of law if passed by both the Kentucky House and Senate. Gooch, the vice president of a construction company that works with coal companies, said he didn’t know how far the resolution could go in the General Assembly and viewed it as “more of a statement.”

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The resolution would prohibit any branch of state or local government in Kentucky from enacting any “federal, state or local law, regulation, ordinance or executive order that limits, regulates or controls the emission of carbon dioxide.”

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Tom FitzGerald, the director of the Kentucky Resources Council, said the legislators were mistaken to suggest that there’s been a weakening of the scientific consensus around the causes and risks of climate change. But he said he understands their concerns about the state’s economy and its heavy reliance on coal.

FitzGerald said the solution wasn’t to prohibit agencies from addressing it. Instead, he said, Kentucky should plan for a carbon-constrained world by making energy efficiency investments and broadening the state’s energy portfolio to include lower-emission sources.