WASHINGTON, DC — Congressman Chris Gibson, who has been described as the most progressive Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, has joined with 10 of his colleagues in introducing a resolution calling for “economically viable, and broadly supported private and public solutions to study and address the causes and effects of measured changes to our global and regional climates.”

The resolution explicitly acknowledges climate change, which to this point is still denied by the majority of elected Republican officials in the nation’s capital. The party is working diligently to defeat the Clean Power Plan, which is the Environmental Protection Agency’s program to reduce the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions coming from power plants, and Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has called climate change the greatest hoax ever foisted on the American people.

But Gibson and his colleagues are saying that climate change is real and needs to be addressed, and that environmental conservation is not at odds with conservative philosophy; in fact the opposite is true. He said in an interview last week, “If conservation isn’t conservative, then words have no meaning at all.”

Gibson, who represents Sullivan, Ulster, Delaware and all or parts of eight other counties, issued a statement that said, “All too often, the conversation about appropriate and balanced environmental stewardship gets caught up in partisan politics. Yet, this conversation is key to the preservation of our great country for generations to come, as important as ensuring we have fiscally responsible policies to secure our future.”

Carlos Curbelo, another member of the House who supports the resolution, represents South Florida, which is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. He said, “South Florida is the front line of climate change, where we have seen its negative impact in the form of rising sea-levels and the erosion of our coastal communities. In Miami-Dade County alone, more people live less than a mere four feet above sea level than any state in the union with the exception of [all of] Florida and Louisiana... 40% of Florida’s population is at risk of rising sea levels, posing a clear and present danger. Our goal with this resolution is to shift the debate from whether climate change is real to what we can do to mitigate its effects.”

The goals of the resolution include:

• Expanding study of our environment, weather and climate through a combination of private, peer-reviewed studies as well as appropriate, non-partisan oversight of government studies and publicly funded studies;

• Modernizing our antiquated energy transmission and transportation through improving electric grid reliability and efficiency, expanding the use of microgrids, and expanding infrastructure investment;

• Bringing our energy sector into the next generation, including expanding our use of hydropower; increasing the potential of our wind power industry; pursuing and improving biomass energy use; promoting programs like SunShot that have already seen progress and have incredible future potential in making more efficient the harnessing of solar power; and pursuing safe and properly regulated natural gas production and use with the goal of creating a bridge to the long-term goal of energy independence with renewable energy resources; and

• Promoting investments in some of the most promising technologies, including nanotechnology coatings and composites, advanced energy storage and battery technology, and waste-heat-to-power systems.