Utah Legislature: Senate committee wants Utah out of climate initiative

SALT LAKE CITY — Climate scientists should stay out of the political arena, Rep. Mike Noel told a Senate committee Tuesday as he pushed for a resolution urging the state to pull out of an anti-greenhouse-gas initiative.

"I'm open for all kinds of discussion, but I'm certainly not open to politicizing this as the science community has done," the Kanab Republican said. "We look to them for good data and good information, and not for them to be politicians."

Noel's HJR21 asks the governor to pull the state out of the Western Climate Initiative, a multi-state collaboration designed to reduce greenhouse gases.

Under the proposal, the state would observe, rather than participate, in the effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

"I think that it is when we try to push forward agendas and say that there is an immediate catastrophe coming about — there is no catastrophe — that's when decisions are made that are improper," Noel said.

He argued that scientists have "manipulated" data to exaggerate the impact of humans on climate change, resulting in a "confused" public.

University of Utah bioengineering professor Joe Andrade criticized the resolution and said the state should act to protect future generations.

"Our grandchildren will one day look back on us as a criminal generation that selfishly ignored the clear warnings and chose not to implement the actions and solutions," he told the committee.

Andrade compared the debate about fossil fuels and climate change to arguments over the links between tobacco and cancer and said the resolution would simply delay the inevitable.

"It's about the power and arrogance of political and corporate officials who choose the convenience, comfort and economic rewards of the present and ignore the burdens and sacrifices such inaction imposes on those who follow," he said.

Noel dismissed the comparison and accused climate change scientists of manipulating data.

Representatives of the Sutherland Institute and the Utah Rural Electric Association voiced concerns that efforts to reduce greenhouse gases would devastate the state's economy.

"The science is not settled," Sutherland's Stan Rasmussen said. "This is not only premature, but economically dangerous."