During a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) questioned Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the Biden Administration’s climate objectives and electric vehicles. Republicans portrayed Buttigieg as stumbling under the inquiry when the Secretary couldn’t answer LaMalfa’s question — “how much of the atmosphere is CO2?” Not having the stat on hand, Buttigieg took a broader approach instead: “What I can tell you is that climate change is real and we have to do something about it.”
Playing a version of gotcha, LaMalfa replied: “Yeah, this one is called autumn, sir.”
For what looked like effect, Buttigieg paused, claiming he couldn’t hear what LaMalfa had said and asked “Sorry?” LaMalfa repeated, “This one is called autumn, sir.”
LaMalfa explained: “This climate change right now is called autumn.” Having forced the Congressman to repeat the climate fallacy on the record, Buttigieg replied: “Yeah, that’s, that’s the seasons changing which respectfully is not the same thing as the climate changing.”
Buttigieg: Climate change is real.
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 20, 2023
GOP Rep. LaMalfa: This one is called autumn.
Buttigieg: I'm sorry, I didn't make out what you said… pic.twitter.com/5Xu5rHVfwr
While Buttigieg voiced his concern for his children’s future when it comes to climate change, LaMalfa claimed to be considering the future too: “The trillions and trillions that it’s going to cost our kids to chase a tiny percentage of CO2 will bankrupt all of us and bankrupt our economy and ship it to China for all the other reasons.”
When the floor was turned over to Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California), he thanked Secretary Buttigieg for coming to the meeting and said facetiously of LaMalfa: “You can see that I serve here in Congress with some of the greatest minds of the 19th century.”
[Note: Carbon dioxide occurs naturally in small amounts (about 0.04 percent) in the Earth’s atmosphere; CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet. The concern voiced by agencies including NASA is that “Human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years.” In 1960, 314 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 was recorded in the atmosphere; in 2023 there was 423 ppm.]
