GOP Wimp & Sellout watch notes Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy for backing down on EPA changes and using gov. shutdown as lame excuse

.
2/25/11, "Wimp & Sellout watch #7," Green Hell blog, Steve Milloy

"While we have high hopes that the newly empowered Republican Members of Congress will make every effort to fight the socialization of America, we are also aware that the GOP has an ignominious history of wimping- and/or selling-out, especially on environmental issues. Wimp & Sellout Watch is GreenHellBlog’s effort to spotlight the GOP’s weak links because:

In the 112th Congress, it should take more courage for GOP-ers to retreat than to advance.

Today’s update on potential wimps and sellouts to watch:

House GOP leadership. Greenwire reports,

House Republicans are preparing a two-week government funding bill for debate next week that amounts to a short-term version of the $60 billion in federal cuts they approved last week — but without that longer legislation’s

• restrictive riders on U.S. EPA and other agencies…

A House GOP aide confirmed that the two-week CR will not include language barring EPA from implementing its politically volatile greenhouse gas emissions rules, its

• transition to a higher ethanol blend in transportation fuels,
  

• its pending limits on water pollution from coal mining operations and
  

other riders that Republicans attached to their seven-month CR before its final passage early Saturday.

Cantor, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and their lieutenants today repeatedly said the newest CR amounts to the

• GOP’s second attempt to avert a shutdown,
  

compared with the lack of action on a CR in the upper chamber.

“If they walk away from this offer, they are then actively engineering a government shutdown,” Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) told reporters, describing his conference’s new CR as

• “a commitment to keep the government open” beyond the current funding bill’s expiration. [Emphasis added]

• Yeesh…..

Don’t forget to check out previous editions of Wimp & Sellout Watch:

• No. 6 — Spotlighting Rep. Mike Simpson.
• No. 5 — Spotlighting Rep. Fred Upton.
• No. 4 — Spotlighting Rep. Fred Upton.
• No. 3 — Spotlighting Rep. Mike Simpson.
• No. 2 — Spotlighting Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rob Portman.
• No. 1 — Spotlighting Sens. Chuck Grassley, Rob Portman, Lindsey Graham and Scott Brown, and Rep. Fred Upton."

via Tom Nelson