Democrats Establish a New House ‘Climate Crisis’ Committee

But it will likely lack the broad powers favored by supporters of a Green New Deal.

ROBINSON MEYER
DEC 28, 2018

The American people have demanded action to combat the climate crisis, which threatens our public health, our economy, our national security and the whole of God’s creation,”...Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Friday...

“It’s a big disappointment,” says... a spokesman for the Sunrise Movement, a Millennial-led organization that championed the Green New Deal plan... “We’ll have to see what the actual mandate of the committee is,” he adds.

The Climate Crisis Committee... will probably not be allowed to issue subpoenas, as a permanent standing House committee can, nor will it be able to draft legislation. Overall, it will be less powerful than the last House select climate committee, which had subpoena power but not legislative authority.

But in the past week, she has sometimes seemed ignorant of major disputes among climate activists. For instance, the Sunrise Movement initially sought to ban Green New Deal committee members from receiving donations of any kind from the fossil-fuel industry. When Castor heard that demand, she balked, claiming that the First Amendment made it impossible. Though she later walked back that comment, calling it “inartful”