CEI’s Myron Ebell provides a quick historical look at Gingrich’s green history.
In the wake of Gingrich’s mea culpa last night about his TV ad with Nancy Pelosi, Ebell said in an e-mail:
Just keep in mind that [Gingrich] was a Sierra Club member before he was a registered Republican and continued as a Sierra Club member for at least a couple decades.
As Speaker, he refused in 1995 and 1996 to allow a floor vote on the Young-Pombo bill to reform the Endangered Species Act, even though it had 147 co-sponsors and would have passed easily. Failure to reform the ESA devastated rural Americans and particularly rural Westerners, who happen to vote [Republican] overwhelmingly.
He then created a committee to vet all environmental legislation coming to the floor and appointed Pombo and Sherry Boehlert [i.e., a RINO] as the co-chairmen. To bring any bill to the floor required both co-chairmen to sign off on it. Pombo represented the majority of Rs, Boehlert represented about 20.
Gingrich started the “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign when he saw how popular it was. His organization signed up millions of people, raised tons of money, and never did much of anything.
Related reading:
Newt is clearly a good historian in that he has a head for facts, figures, and trivia.
However, he is like a weather vane in a tornado spinning out of control at each change in direction of the poltical winds.
For this reason, I don’t think he would be a reliably conservative President.
There are very few differences between Newt and Mitt. Both are go along, get along politicians.
Why cannot the conservatives nominate a real conservative? It is truly a mystery of the Pyrimids.
Where are the Marco Rubio’s, Pauly Ryan’s, Jim DeMint’s or similarlity conservative stalwarts of our Party? At least they could do is influence the debate instead of lurking in the shadows.
Mr. Gingrich conspicuously did not state WHY it was a mistake.
Obviously, it wasn’t the content that was a mistake to him, it was
a political fallout.
Would not the moniker “Greengrich” be apt? It would save on having typing Green Gingrich.