Washington Examiner: Freshman Rep. Andrew Garbarino seeks to restore 'depleted' Republican ranks of the climate caucus
Freshman Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York is preparing to take on a more high-profile role at the forefront of the GOP attempt to shift its positioning on addressing climate change.
Garbarino, 37, recently became co-chairman of the Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group started in 2016 to collaborate to address global warming...
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“The caucus was very depleted and needed leadership, so I was happy to step up,” said Garbarino, in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner detailing his new role.
Garbarino is motivated by both his age, with polls showing young Republicans are increasingly concerned about climate change, and his district along the south shore of Long Island, which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and is vulnerable to extreme weather worsened by global warming.
Seeking to elevate the profile of the group and his role in it, Garbarino traveled to a major United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, this month as part of a delegation led by the Climate Solutions Foundation, a bipartisan nonprofit group that funded the trip.
His delegation also included Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and business leaders from companies including Exelon, an electric utility, Amazon, and SAP, a software company.
Garbarino was not the only sitting Republican lawmaker present in Glasgow. But his appearance at the conference, along with a separate GOP delegation led by Rep. John Curtis of Utah, was notable because Republicans have historically not been present in international climate negotiations. And when they were, they were there to protest, not to be cooperative.
“Republicans going there and getting educated on these climate issues will allow us to have a seat at the table when we discuss how to reduce emissions,” Garbarino said. Garbarino has wasted little time in carving out an independent streak in the mold of Rep. Peter King, his district’s long-time representative before retiring in 2020.