Editor’s Note: U.S. Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) recently announced that he would not be running for reelection during the 2024 election cycle. His decision, which came as this report was being finalized, is likely good news for Louisiana residents and the Republican Party. Graves was leading the charge in the Republican caucus to mandate substantial lifestyle restrictions to fight climate change. As the report below details, fighting climate change is not a top issue for voters in general and it ranks particularly low among issues of concern for self-identified Republicans. In addition, there is no evidence that climate change is posing a particular risk to Louisiana, while, by contrast, the policies supported by Graves to fight climate change would likely bring net harm to Louisianans.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) has behaved in a manner regarding climate change that makes it clear he has accepted and is promoting the alarmist climate narrative of the political left. Such behavior and advocacy are out of touch with Louisiana voters and conservative values. Worse, it advances all sorts of nefarious government restrictions on energy choice, energy use, and personal freedom. This paper presents a sampling of Graves’ betrayal of his Louisiana constituents regarding the alarmist climate agenda.
Graves has, without justification, surrendered too much ground to Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, President Joe Biden, and other climate alarmists. That endangers the personal freedoms and the household budgets of the people of Louisiana. It also guarantees the destruction of the state’s oil and gas industry, on which Louisianans rely for jobs and essential infrastructure funding, including the infrastructure that helps Louisiana fortify the coastline against natural erosion and the impact of storms.
When he was speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in 2019 appointed Graves co-chairman of the now-defunct Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. There, Graves supported adaption and mitigation strategies for sea level rise and coastal erosion in particular, which is absolutely fine.
However, Graves went further, promoting highly dubious alarmist climate narratives, waging war on conventional energy sources, and supporting dim-witted limitations on personal freedom and the economy. Graves was instrumental in helping shape an environmental platform for Republicans and, to quote Environment & Energy News, “made environmental issues a major focus on the committees on Natural Resources and Transportation and Infrastructure.”
In 2022, Graves attended a virtual forum hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA). At the forum, Graves asserted climate change is a “huge problem,” particularly referencing sea level rise. He has been somewhat inconsistent with his comments on climate change and hurricanes, depending on who his audience is. In one opening statement from a December 2022 hearing, Graves implied that Katrina and other damaging hurricanes were climate-fueled, but at another hearing in September earlier that year, he pushed back on a claim that hurricanes were becoming more numerous, correctly stating that data show a decline in the number of hurricanes.
It appears that Graves tended to change his position based on his audience. However, when push came to shove, he vociferously promoted climate alarmism and its antifreedom agenda. Even when making statements tailored to a conservative audience, Graves didn’t know what he was talking about. …
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
