Future of House Climate Caucus In Doubt As Carlos Curbelo Concedes

More than half the 45 Republican members are at risk of losing Tuesday.

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Elected Republicans who actively talk about climate change are a rare breed, and they just became even rarer on Tuesday night.

Miami Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo has conceded his race to to Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the Florida’s 26th District. His loss casts doubt on the future of the caucus he co-chairs, the House Climate Solutions Caucus, which stood to lose as many as 36 Republicans between its vulnerable and retiring members. Eight of these seats are retirements or members who lost their primaries.

As of Tuesday evening, 10 Republican members of the caucus, including Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Scott Taylor (R-Va.), and Mike Coffman (R-Co.), also lost to Democrats. 

Curbelo, a moderate who actively distanced himself from President Trump on immigration, represents a district won by Hillary Clinton in 2016. He proposed a carbon tax bill that landed with a thud earlier this year, with his party not even considering the measure, while the House passed a resolution declaring a carbon tax discussion to be a nonstarter. 

Because climate is largely ignored in the Republican party, the House Climate Solutions Caucus, an informal, symbolic group that meets only rarely, has become the only opportunity to see any movement on the issue. Its Republican membership is largely comprised of politicians facing tough reelection battles hailing from endangered coastal states like Florida, a number of whom who are willing to at least acknowledge that climate change is a real, man-made issue. Formed in February 2016, it is a strictly bipartisan caucus that allowed one Democratic member to join for every Republican recruited. Curbelo has been co-chair with Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fl), over time bringing 90 total members—45 Republicans—on board.

But I’ve written that the caucus never had particular standards about who could be brought on board, raising questions about how much the informal group was greenwashing political records as opposed to seriously vetting a GOP-approved climate action plan: 

Its critics charge the caucus has expanded its size at the expense of its credibility, providing Republicans who have been actively hostile to government programs a low-stakes opportunity to “greenwash” their climate credentials without backing meaningful action—just in time for midterm elections. 

Today, a long list of Democrats are waiting to join the caucus, but all Republicans are welcome. New members aren’t subscribing to any particular set of principles—other than (hopefully) the view that climate change is not a hoax—given the deliberately vague mission of the caucus to educate members of Congress on climate risk and explore policy options around climate change.

Steve Valk of Citizens’ Climate Lobby says that the caucus could regrow its ranks again, as it had after some members exited in 2016. In the past, they put a hold on the number of Democrats who could join until Republicans refilled their rank. Yet it’s unclear how exactly it recovers after this cycle, especially without a clear Republican leader.

Some climate activists would be happy to see the caucus disband, arguing that if it ever put produced a workable bill, it would be too weak to truly tackle the needs of climate change. Co-founder of the Climate Hawks Vote PAC R.L. Miller, who endorsed Curbelo’s challenger, argues that Republican-led action on climate change would be far too weak to be meaningful. “First we need to put good people in who can stand up for something strong rather than trying to pass something bipartisan,” she said, “because at this point the Republican party is so far gone with fossil fuels and climate denialism.”

There is continued debate over the best strategy for tackling climate change. Some, like Miller, argue that Democrats are better off passing legislation on their own, hopefully building a path for a time they actually control Congress. Some will surely mourn the loss of a moderate Republican leader.

Nancy Pelosi has told the New York Times that Democrats are considering the return of a select committee focused on climate change, similar to one that existed from 2007 to 2011, to prepare the way for climate legislation. That would surely not involve Republicans in any major way, but it would have more teeth than an informal caucus. 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate