FRANKFORT — State lawmakers' discussion Thursday of the effect of new EPA carbon emission regulations on Kentuckyfocused more on political attacks than hard science.
While committee members railed against the Obama Administration and the EPA regulations they admittedly don’t fully understand — the document is about 700 pages — many lawmakers saw fit to attack the science behind climate change.
“I won’t get into the debate about climate change," said Sen. Brandon Smith, a Hazard Republican. “But I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”
Smith owns a coal company on Earth.
The average Martian temperature is-81 degree Fahrenheit, but the committee was just getting warmed up.
State Rep. Kevin Sinnette, a Democrat from Ashland, said climate change didn’t kill the dinosaurs, so human beings should be just fine.
“The dinosaurs died, and we don’t know why, but the world adjusted. And to say that this is what’s going to cause detriment to people, I just don’t think it’s out there," Sinnette said.
Buried in the bluster were some actual data: Namely, a presentation by the state’s assistant secretary for Climate Policy that Kentucky will almost entirely be powered by natural gas in the year 2050.
The state will have to submit its own proposal to the EPA by June 30, 2015.
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