Climate Deniers in the 117th Congress – Center for American Progress

Source: Climate Deniers in the 117th Congress – Center for American Progress

According to new analysis from the Center for American Progress, there are still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress, including 109 representatives and 30 senators, who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. All 139 of these climate-denying elected officials have made recent statements casting doubt on the clear, established scientific consensus that the world is warming—and that human activity is to blame. These same 139 climate-denying members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries.

While the number of climate deniers has shrunk by 11 members (from 150 to 139) since the CAP Action Fund’s analysis of the 116th Congress—largely in the face of growing and overwhelming public support for action on climate—their numbers still include the majority of the congressional Republican caucus.* These climate deniers comprise 52 percent of House Republicans; 60 percent of Senate Republicans; and more than one-quarter of the total number of elected officials in Congress. Furthermore, despite the decline in total overall deniers in Congress, a new concerning trend has emerged: Of the 69 freshmen representatives and senators elected to their respective offices in 2020, one-third deny the science of climate change, including 20 new House Republicans and three-of-four new Republican senators. Of note, no currently serving Democratic or independent elected officials have engaged in explicit climate denial by this analysis’ definition.**

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It is stark and shocking that there are still 139 elected officials in the U.S. Congress who deny or dodge clear scientific consensus, despite the obvious effects of climate change now accelerating across the country and globe. Climate change is no longer a distant threat looming in the future—nor has it been for quite some time. In 2020, there were 22 extreme weather events that caused damage in the United States that exceeded $1 billion each, a new annual record that shattered the previous record of 16 events that happened in both 2011 and 2017. With the backdrop of a deadly pandemic, Americans last year had to flee their homes in the face of out-of-control wildfires and an unprecedented number of hurricanes and seek shelter from sweltering heat waves—events that exacerbate already-troubling racial and economic inequalities.

While more than 25 percent of elected officials in the 117th U.S. Congress refuse to accept this clear and experienced reality, the American public has noticed. Climate change featured prominently in the 2020 presidential election, with younger voters ranking climate action as their top priority. The public knows how to solve climate change too—by deep and immediate cuts to U.S. carbon dioxide emissions through sectoral standards coupled with massive investments that create jobs in the clean economies of the future, all while addressing decades of environmental injustices. According to exit polls on November 3, 2020 by Fox News, these investments are supported by 70 percent of the American public. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of adults believe that the government is doing too little to address the climate crisis, and 80 percent support tougher limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

The map below shows whether each state’s representation in Congress denies accepted climate science and includes lifetime fossil fuel donation amounts for the identified climate-denying members. Click on each elected official’s name to see their statement on climate change. To view a full-size version of the interactive, click here.