Dems’ epic Keystone troll: Proposed amendment asks Senators to acknowledge climate change

From:  Salon 

by Lindsay Abrams
 

If GOPers want their pipeline bill, they'll have to go on the record as climate deniers 

Mitch McConnell (Credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts/AP/Tony Gutierrez/Photo montage by Salon)

The Senate advanced its big Keystone XL pipeline bill Monday night in a 63-32 vote (10 Democrats and one Independent were in favor), opening it up for debate and for additional amendments — which Senators on both sides of the aisle are invited to propose. And boy, are they taking advantage of that.

President Obama has already threatened to veto the bill when it all but inevitably lands on his desk. But in the meantime, Democrats who oppose the pipeline are taking advantage of the open-amendment process — which the bill’s sponsors say could help it overcome the veto — to introduce some changes that, strategically, will make it harder for Republicans to endorse it, but that also come off as some pretty clever trolling.

Bernie Sanders emerges as master of the latter: according to the Hill, the Independent Senator plans to offer a non-binding resolution on the scientific consensus that climate change is real and caused by human activity. The Washington Postgot its hands on a copy of the resolution, in which Senators will be asked to indicate whether or not they agree with the following:

It is the sense of Congress that Congress is in agreement with the opinion of virtually the entire worldwide scientific community and a growing number of top national security experts, economists, and others that – MORE