The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has been mostly silent on global warming issues since November's partisan meltdown over a cap-and-trade bill that Democrats advanced despite a Republican boycott.

On Thursday, EPW Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will return to the debate with a hearing into the public health warnings from many scientists that climate change is likely to increase malnutrition, encourage the spread of disease-carrying insects and worsen floods, droughts and storms.

Boxer repeatedly cited the public health threats from global warming in her campaign to pass S. 1733, a bill to set first-ever limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. But her efforts failed to convince any of the committee's GOP lawmakers, some of whom remain skeptical of the science linking man-made emissions to global warming.

More recently, Boxer has trumpeted the public health risks as she fights a Republican-led bid to neuter U.S. EPA's ability to write climate change regulations. "Today, an assault on the health of the American people has begun," Boxer said last month when Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced a resolution that would repeal EPA's "endangerment finding" that declares climate change a threat to both public health and welfare.

Murkowski countered that her resolution, which has the support of moderate Republicans and three Senate Democrats, is aimed at stopping costly EPA rules that would hamper the nation's economic recovery. A Senate floor vote on Murkowski's resolution is possible next month, though its chances of making it into law remain a long shot given opposition from President Obama.

Scientists and public health officials, including the World Medical Association, World Health Organization and American Medical Association, have been making the case for years that global warming left unchecked is likely to cause problems for the most vulnerable nations and population groups, including the elderly, poor and children.

Research published last November in the British medical journal The Lancet concluded that many policies designed to limit global warming could also have immediate benefits in reducing lung and heart disease caused by air pollution (ClimateWire, Nov. 25, 2009).

Schedule: The hearing is at 10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, in 406 Dirksen.

Witnesses: TBA.

This article was authored by Darren Samuelsohn and is posted courtesy of E&E Publishing, LLC/E&E News Daily.  To access the E&E News web site, go here.

Comments   2/9/2010 3:25:00 PM Norm  Watching with amazement  I'm amazed at the blindness with which so many in the political class are trying to steamroller ahead with their cap and trade schemes in the face of mounting evidence that the current allowable understanding of the causes of climate change are built on a foundation of rapidly melting Jell-O. Were I in their shoes, I'd be calling for a minimum of a year's time-out on any legislation or regulation of carbon until the climate research blow-up runs its course and the fallout settles. We simply do not have anything close to adequate science to justify crucifying the global economy on the AGW alter. As one scientist, referring to the old adage of "Where there's smoke, there's fire," put it . . . we don't just have smoke, what we've got is a mushroom cloud. Ah, well, where climate modeling is concerned, I guess it's just a matter of garbage in, gospel out. Your Name Title Comment New Comment Enter the code