Speaker Turzai: A Climate Denier Has No Place Chairing the Environment Committee

Daryl Metcalfe is an outrageous PA legislator whose over-the-top behavior finally forced the House GOP leadership to remove him as chair of the powerful State Government Committee. So what did they do with him? They made him chair of the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.

This petition is a companion to the letter we are submitting to Speaker Turzai calling on him to remove Metcalfe from his seat as Chair and from any seat on the committee. Here is the letter in full:

Speaker Turzai,

We, the undersigned, call on you to remove Representative Daryl Metcalfe from his seat as chair of the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee and from any seat on that committee. We have little time left to address the climate crisis. Representative Metcalfe’s record of unabashed climate denial, obstructionism, and unprofessional behavior makes him a wholly inappropriate person to chair or even serve on the committee that should be leading the efforts in the House to address the most important issue of our time.

Representative Metcalfe’s views on climate change have been well documented over the past decade.

Here is his reaction in 2009 to Operation Free. "As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!" Mr. Metcalfe's email reads. "Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!" (Post-Gazette, October 20, 2009)

In February of this year, soon after you made him chair of the committee, he said the following and posted it on his Facebook page, “Just to be on record, I enjoy my vegetables, and plants need CO2, so I want to make sure we have plenty of CO2 out there so we have green grass and green vegetables growing... We need CO2, we can’t eliminate all CO2. We are going to have an interesting debate for those that want to reduce something that is actually needed by our environment. And claiming that they are improving the environment.” (Representative Metcalfe’s Facebook page, February 2019)

In fact, Metcalfe has used his Facebook page and the Metcalfe Minute videos he posts there to expound on his views of climate change more than once,” In reality, the very real threat to responsible environmental stewardship and effective energy management comes from radical Progressives who are generating fake fear (a.k.a. "man-made" climate change) to take more money from the people who actually work for it!” (Representative Metcalfe’s Facebook page, September 2019)

Here’s a post from August, “Climate change? Of course it does! Although, it is not and does not threaten the existence of life as we know it! The leftist, big government, we know better than you, nanny state, tyrant types are spreading their lies to instill fear amongst the masses in hopes of mobilizing some of them in their effort to rob us of our wealth and liberty! They would tax the oxygen we breathe if they thought they could get away with it, but have settled on attempting to tax CO2. Let’s stand together and fight for TRUTH to dispel the error!” (Representative Metcalfe’s Facebook page, August 2019)

His rhetoric and behavior were no different in the three-hour hearing he held on October 28th wherein he shared similarly ignorant views, shushed and threatened to remove an invited University of Pennsylvania climate scientist who countered one of the climate deniers also invited to testify, interrupted Democratic committee members when they tried to ask questions, and reached over and shut off Representative Greg Vitali’s microphone when he disagreed with something he was saying.

It is your responsibility to make sure the representatives you assign to chair and sit on committees are up to the task. Clearly, Representative Metcalfe is not. We call on you to use your authority as the leader of the House GOP to remove Representative Metcalfe from the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee in consequence of his false and dangerous beliefs and inappropriate actions and replace him with someone who acknowledges the crisis we face and is prepared to act accordingly.