Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick backs legislation calling for massive mobilization on climate change
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick has signed on as a co-sponsor of legislation recognizing climate change as an “emergency which demands a massive-scale mobilization to halt, reverse, and address its consequences and causes.”
In a written statement to The Arizona Republic, Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., wrote that she decided to co-sponsor the “emergency declaration” after meeting with community leaders and environmental groups, and “seeing the Trump administration’s disregard for healthy necessary climate policy.”
“This resolution highlights the need for our economy to accommodate new green jobs and infrastructure, as well as prioritize public health and safety,” Kirkpatrick wrote.
The House resolution unequivocally recognizes the role humans have played in causing climate change and lays out scientific findings indicating climate change poses a threat to public health, national security and the economy.
It’s a national obligation, the resolution says, for the federal government to “mobilize at an emergency speed,” working with state and local governments, as well as other countries, to reverse the impacts of the climate crisis by phasing out the use of oil, gas, and coal.
“Failure to mobilize and solve the climate emergency is antithetical to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence in protecting ‘unalienable Rights’ that include ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,’” the resolution states.
Kirkpatrick said the issue is a pressing one for her congressional district, located in the southeastern corner of the state.
“Arizona will suffer more than most of the country and we are already experiencing the dramatic rises in heat and humidity, more wildfires, and less water,” Kirkpatrick wrote in her statement. “Southern Arizonans recognize this as a real emergency and they want to hear solutions.”
Kirkpatrick signed on as co-sponsor of the resolution, introduced in early July, on Aug. 16.
Other co-sponsors include Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., and members of the progressive “squad” of freshman congresswomen, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who earlier this year unveiled a sweeping proposal to address climate change called the Green New Deal.
Though Kirkpatrick has recently called climate change the “biggest existential threat to the planet” and called for Arizona to phase out fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy sources, she voted against the 2009 House energy bill aimed at fighting climate change.
Elements of the climate resolution, which doesn’t have a single Republican co-sponsor, tread further left on the issue than Kirkpatrick has gone in the past.
The resolution recognizes that traditionally marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change and states that a zero-emissions economy “guarantees good jobs at fair union wages.”
Kirkpatrick’s district, which includes Cochise County and part of Pima County, has a centrist complexion and in recent years has changed from red to blue and back again.
In 2018, Kirkpatrick beat out Republican opponent Lea Marquez Peterson by nearly 10 percentage points. The seat was previously occupied by now-Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz, but it was also one of 25 Republican-held districts won by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
In her statement, Kirkpatrick wrote that climate change is “not a republican or democrat issue.”
“This is an everybody issue,” she wrote. “This is no longer a looming threat for debate, it’s here. Climate change is happening and not only do we need common sense solutions and immediate action — we need all our elected leaders to acknowledge it.”