GOP lawmaker: Trying to fix climate crisis is 'tantamount to genocide'

Outlandish Republican claims about the Green New Deal, the progressive plan to ensure future generations have clean air and clean water, took a decidedly dark turn Thursday morning when Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) claimed the ideas found in the Green New Deal are “tantamount to genocide.”

The remarks came at a Republican press conference demanding Democrats hold congressional hearings on the landmark climate legislation. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,  and, Bishop, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee, along with several other members, allege the Green New Deal goes too far. But none of the comments were as startling as Bishop’s.

Following the press conference, Axios reminded him that genocide means killing a group of people based on their ethnicity or belonging to a certain group. Rather than rephrase, Bishop stood by his remarks, saying, “I’m an ethnic. I’m a westerner.”

Pushed further and asked if he thought implementing the Green New Deal would literally kill him, Bishop not only said yes, he said that death would be preferable.

“Killing would be positive if you implement everything the Green New Deal actually wants to,” Bishop said. “That’s why the the Green New Deal is not ready for prime time.”

But the Green New Deal does not call for the large-scale massacre of any group of people. It doesn’t call for killing anyone at all. It simply acknowledges that climate change is real and offers a series of policy prescriptions to address and mitigate the man-made causes of climate change.

The bill, championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), hopes to address climate-change crisis.

A recent report from top scientists says that countries only have about 12 years left to address climate change before devastating outcomes become inevitable. The report warns of famine, refugee crises, sea level rises, increasingly powerful storms, and massive droughts if Republicans have their way and significant changes do not take place.

But when lawmakers step forward to address the crisis, Republicans mock the efforts and lie about what the impact will be. Trump lied about the plan, saying it would eliminate air travel. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), a member of the House Republican leadership team, lied and said the plan would outlaw cars. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, went so far as to say the bill would ban ice cream (spoiler: it won’t).

But those lies pale in comparison to Bishop, who blithely likened the bill’s passage to atrocities committed by Hitler and other of history’s worst murderers.

Republican hyperbole is nothing new. Republicans have called Social Security a “folly,” warned that Medicare and Medicaid would usher in socialism, and predicted “death panels” if the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, became law.

Bishop’s new accusations that liken the Green New Deal to genocide are as wrong as they are appalling.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.