Virginia House subcommittee hears from climate change skeptics

A House of Delegates subcommittee devoted time on Thursday for testimony from climate change skeptics funded by the energy industry.

Gregory Wrightstone, the executive director of the CO2 Coalition, and Patrick Michaels, the former Virginia state climatologist who is now a senior fellow at the Arlington-based coalition, testified to the House Commerce and Energy Subcommittee that the Commonwealth’s attempts to influence the climate through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Virginia Clean Economy Act and Multi-State Medium- and Heavy-Duty Zero Emission Vehicle Memorandum of Understanding have no scientific basis and would have no measurable effect.

“We have concluded that Virginia’s participation in the various attempts to reduce global atmospheric temperature is climatically meaningless, but the costs and inconvenience imposed by these plans will be economically very meaningful,” Wrightstone said. “The governmental bodies tasked with review of these programs should ‘follow the science’ and reject economically costly programs that have no utility.”

Story by Chris Graham