The United States Congress is the biggest, most powerful legislative body in the world — and most of its ruling members deny the existence of human-caused climate change.
They do so not only at the peril of low-lying cities, coral reefs, Arctic wildlife, and our way of life. Increasingly, they do so at the peril of their own reelection.
This is not the case for Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), who is facing a tight reelection race but has emerged as one of the House’s most outspoken advocates of climate action. Curbelo recently became the first Republican in the 2016 campaign cycle to be supported by EDF Action — the political arm of the Environmental Defense Fund.
In the ad released this week, EDF Action applauded Curbelo’s environmental record.
“He’s fighting to restore the Everglades, defending its future and our health,” the ad says. “Curbelo also fought to keep our kids safe from toxic chemicals and is addressing climate change to protect our coastlines.”
Earlier this year, Curbelo launched the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, a formal group with a mission to “to educate [House] members on economically-viable options to reduce climate risk and protect our nation’s economy, security, infrastructure, agriculture, water supply, and public safety.” Members can join only in bipartisan pairs.
Separately, Curbelo also led a group of Republican colleagues in a call to climate action last September. The issue is important to his constituents, said Joanna Rodriguez, Curbelo’s communications director in Florida.
“The Florida Keys and the Everglades are a very large part of the district, and climate is obviously an important issue in those areas,” she said.
“Overwhelmingly, across the district, the economy is the main concern, but climate change is a part of that,” Rodriguez said. Local businesses rely on infrastructure, tourism, clean water, and all the other things that come with a safe, unflooded, non-toxic environment.
Indeed, Florida contains some of the country’s most at-risk communities and ecosystems. South Florida, in particular, home millions of people, is a low-lying area, leaving it exposed to sea level rise and storm surges. The latest research shows that Miami will be underwater by 2100 unless there is a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
“Maybe Republicans in South Florida are among the first to move on this because the issues are so urgent there,” said Keith Gaby, communications director for EDF Action. “They are stuck between sea level rise and hurricanes.”
In fact, climate change has become an ever-increasingly important issue for voters of all stripes. Three out of four Democratic voters and three out of five Republican voters believe global climate change is occurring. So it makes sense that at least some congressional representatives and senators are acknowledging this fact, too.
But even in the face of polling that shows increased support for clean energy and climate action, it is not without risk that Republicans (and some Democrats) take a stand on these issues.
“The groups that rely on our old energy system and want to keep us stuck in the past, they definitely get upset,” said John T. Reuter, director of local and bipartisan strategies at the League of Conservation Voters. “They get angry.”
“I think there are more Republicans that would come out [in support of climate action] if we could remove some of the perverse incentives from our campaign system,” he said. “There are definitely consequences, but I don’t think it’s from the voters,” Reuter said.
Overall, as with so many issues, there is more money in politics now than there ever has been before.
But Reuter said that while donations may be on one side of the aisle or the other — League of Conservation Voters has given only 3.6 percent of its campaign contributions to Republicans in the 2016 cycle — the issues are not.
“Everybody cares about clean air. Everybody cares about clean water. They care about the water we drink and the air we breath,” he said. “I think that there’s actually a set of shared values, shared American values, around climate change.”
But until those “shared values” are shared in the halls of Congress, environmental campaign contributions will likely stay mostly partisan. Out of the top 20 largest environmental donors in the 2016 congressional cycle so far, 15 gave more than 95 percent of their donations to Democratic candidates. Two gave more than 95 percent of their donations to Republican candidates, leaving only three that were even slightly bipartisan.
EDF Action, which funded the Curbelo ad, has given 85 percent of its donations to Democratic candidates.
But Gaby said his group doesn’t pick candidates based on party label — and that’s not why they backed Curbelo.
“It was more about his record having stood up [for climate change], and our desire to show everyone in the political community that when you are serious about climate change, you will get support,” Gaby said.
Especially in this election cycle, when the Republican ticket will be topped by “a guy who is being so wildly irresponsible, ignorant, and destructive on the issues of climate,” it’s important to elevate candidates like Curbelo, Gaby said. “We need to support him and build on that and create a model for other people in the Republican party to join with him.”