It sounded sometimes like Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, was teaching a Climate Change 101 workshop on Tuesday. He asked members of the House Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee to focus on a few trends.
“The first point is that our planet has gotten warmer over recent decades,” he said. “The second is that Utah has gotten warmer over recent decades.”
House lawmakers listened politely to a pair of resolutions on climate change. They took no action in the end, but the conversation on the issue still isn’t done.
For his bill, Ward stuck to facts. He talked about everything from temperature trends in Tooele and the broad agreement among scientists that the rapid climate change the planet’s going through now is a serious problem. His resolution does little more than ask Utah’s political leaders to keep that in mind when considering energy policies.
Then committee members raised familiar opposing arguments, like how climate’s always swayed between warm and cold.
“I can’t go there with — that Man is the substantial reason for all of this,” said Rep. Derrin Owens, R-Fountain Green.
Lawmakers took the resolution off the table without voting. That might kill it. But Ward hasn’t given up.
“I will say this,” he said after Tuesday’s hearing. “The day will come, I firmly believe, when a resolution with my wording makes it out of this committee. I don’t know if that’s this year.”
Lawmakers heard about second climate change bill, this one by another Davis County Republican, Rep. Becky Edwards. But they ran out of time to hear from dozens of supporters, so that resolution is expected to be at the top of the committee’s to-do list on Thursday.
