Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has served in the U.S. Senate since his election in 2014 after previously representing Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District in the House for six years. He is a member of the Finance Committee, the Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the Veterans Affairs committees.
Bill Cassidy on Climate Change
Senator Bill Cassidy’s views on Climate Change became far more public during his campaign in the 2014 Louisiana senate election, taking an opposing stance on regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency because of the way it kills high paying industrial jobs. These claims came in defense of a bill that Cassidy and his Republican colleagues were trying to pass on the House floor that would require the Energy Department to notify Congress first of any environmental rules that could cause “significant adverse effects on the economy”. Additionally, in another one of the 2014 debates with his Democratic opponent, he claimed that “global temperatures have not risen in 15 years”.
In 2015, Cassidy along with several other Republican senators, wrote a letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in response to a policy that requires states to consider the effects of climate change before they can be eligible for grant funding. The letter stated that climate change is still being debated, on the basis that there are still “gaps in the scientific understanding around climate change.”
Cassidy has also appeared to be misinformed on what exactly causes climate change, referring to sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides as primary greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, rather than the actual contributing greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide.
Senator Bill Cassidy has a lifetime score of 7% on his League of Conservation Scorecard, representing the rate at which he votes for pro-environmental policy. He will be running for reelection to the Senate in 2020.
Bill Cassidy and Friends
Bill Cassidy’s 2020 reelection was endorsed by President Donald Trump in early March. President Trump’s extensive history of climate change denial can be reviewed in this article from the Atlantic. Throughout his entire senate career, Cassidy has received a total donation amount of $466,655 from big oil and gas.
See Also
Sen. James Inhofe
Sen. Joni Ernst
Sen. David Perdue
Climate of Denial