Pelosi asked but Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declined to be on panel for #climatechange

[riversedge]

Nancy Pelosi

"This new Select Committee will spearhead Democrats’ work to develop innovative, effective solutions to prevent and reverse the climate crisis,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo


Pelosi announces Dems for new climate panel


https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/07/pelosi-climate-change-panel-1154847


Updated 02/07/2019 05:46 PM EST


Speaker Nancy Pelosi built out the Democratic roster for her special select panel on climate change Thursday, pulling from a mix of old and new lawmakers but leaving off the highest profile freshmen like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

The announcement, on the same day that the proposal for the lofty Green New Deal lands on Capitol Hill and one day after the first climate change hearings in years, gives a further boost to Democratic efforts to bring the issue to the forefront of their agenda.

“I want everybody to be in on the act because this is deadly serious,” Pelosi said in an interview Wednesday, adding that the panel will focus on global warming “from the standpoint of health, security, economics and morality.”

The new House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will be led by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), and raising public awareness of the issue will be a top priority; just 35 percent of Americans consider climate change an imminent threat.

The other Democratic members of the panel are Reps. Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Suzanne Bonamici (Ore.), Julia Brownley (Calif.), Sean Casten (Ill.), Jared Huffman (Calif.), Mike Levin (Calif.), Donald McEachin (Va.) and Joe Neguse (Colo.).

Casten, Levin and Neguse are freshmen.

After her weekly press conference Thursday, Pelosi told reporters that she had invited Ocasio-Cortez to be on the panel and that she declined.


Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday afternoon said that “timing and logistics“ were the main reason she did not join the panel, adding that she was unsure whether she would be asked or selected for it and wanted to maximize her standing committee assignments.

“When I got the call recently to get on the select committee, I didn‘t feel like I would be able to do it justice,“ she said during an interview on MSNBC.

She also said she didn’t believe that she was snubbed by Pelosi and that “the speaker was gracious enough to invite me on it.“..................

[Autumn]

1. Thanks for posting this. I had missed that Nancy put her on the Judiciary committee.

[Cha]

2. Mahalo for setting the record Straight!

[riversedge]

3. I try. take care. I was

outside shoveling more snow AGAIN. sure is pretty though.

[Cha]

4. I was just telling

someone about shoveling so much snow hen I lived by the Adirondacks!

Hang in there, rivers! I bet it's pretty.. I remember that, too.Brrr!

[former9thward]

5. Cortez has said the world is going to end in 12 years because of climate change.

Why would she refuse to work on a committee to try and stop it?

[Mariana]

6. The OP includes her explanation. nt.

[mcar]

7. AOC was on MSNBC Todd show

and explained it. She's already on several committees and subcommittees and didn't want to give them up .

MSM so wants an AOC v Pelosi "scandal" and it ain't happening.