Lance: Conservation is Conservative

7th District Lawmaker Signs Onto GOP Climate Change Resolution

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ-07) today announced he has cosponsored H.Res. 195 — a congressional resolution calling for innovative solutions to protect our Nation’s economic and national security from the growing challenges of climate change.

“The economic and national security effects posed by climate change cannot be ignored or denied.  Economists of all stripes agree that extreme weather due to climate change costs taxpayers billions of dollars in damages.  And Defense Secretary James Mattis said climate change is a threat to our national security that our military planners need to consider when designing military strategies.  Congress must address these fiscal and military challenges by adopting innovative and economically viable conservative principles laid out in this congressional resolution,” Lance said.

The resolution calls on the House of Representatives to commit to working on economically viable solutions that address the risks of climate change, calling on ‘American ingenuity, innovation, and exceptionalism,’ and citing the ‘conservative principle to protect, conserve, and be good stewards of our environment.’

As a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Lance has crafted bipartisan legislation for an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy that has helped contribute to the booming U.S. energy sector and the rise of safer, cheaper energy sources like natural gas and solar power.  These markets have grown dramatically in recent years.

The Seventh District lawmaker has a long record of environmental conservation, including last year being honored by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and other conservation advocates for his support for the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.  Lance has secured reauthorization of the federal program that has enabled the acquisition and development of over 75,000 acres of open spaces and recreation areas in New Jersey.  These protected lands include the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Spruce Run Reservoir, Gateway National Recreation Area, Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Morristown National Historic Park, Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge and the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge.

H.Res. 195 is sponsored by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York.  Lance also has joined the Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan caucus that aims to address the impacts, causes and challenges of climate change.

“There is a great tradition of conservation within the Republican Party.  Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan all understood that conservation is conservative.  Republicans in Congress today should enact policies that embrace this great conservation legacy,” concluded Lance.