Thom Tillis Endorses ‘Man-made Climate Change’ Myth, Big Government ‘Solutions’

RALEIGH – Sen. Thom Tillis (RINO-NC) was sat down with Spectrum News’ classy Tim Boyum for an interview that centered mostly around climate change. While they touched on immigration views (amnesty) and some other factors, the bulk of the conversation was essentially Tillis’ coming out party to let the North Carolina voters know he believes in man-made climate change and thinks Big Government solutions are the answer.

EXCLUSIVE: 4 yrs ago @SenThomTillis said climate change was not a fact during debate. Tonight he says human factors DO impact climate change. See entire interview on @NCCapTonight at 7pm #ncpol #ncga #climate #climatechange pic.twitter.com/cqNIontR3U

— Tim Boyum (@TimBoyumTV) August 7, 2018

You van access the whole 15 minute interview here, but just in case you are slightly allergic to the arrogance of Tillis’ ‘Holier than thou’ bipartisan shtick, we watched it for you.

Earlier in Tillis’ political career he suggested that climate change wasn’t real, likely during one of his campaign runs in order to fool common sense conservatives into believing he was a good representative. Now, as shown in the clip above, Tillis thinks that “human factors” definitely change the climate, and he has all sorts of Big Government solutions for it.

When asked by Boyum what role the government should have in combating (man-made) climate change, Tillis first suggests the government do more to push alternatives to fossil fuels.

Of course, we have known about his affinity for Big Government solutions to non-existent problems from his time on Jones Street in Raleigh. He goes on to boast in the interview about his part in pushing the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (REPS) while a state lawmaker. This Big Government monstrosity mandated utilities draw 12.5 percent of their energy from renewable sources, among a host of other regulations, and thus raised the cost of power for everybody in the state. We still can’t find enough principled Republicans on Jones Street to actually get rid of it.

“I voted for that bill, and I got criticized for it,” chirps Tillis about the REPS legislation. He got criticized for it because it is an absurd violation of the principles he espoused on the campaign trail, but then again Tillis seems to take pride in being hated by conservatives.

Further, he next brags to Boyum about his role in enacting solar subsidies to create the second largest taxpayer funded racket in the nation. He acknowledges that the solar industry in the Old North State would have gone nowhere were it not for those subsidies, but says that exactly why they are needed.

“In 2020 they’ll be self-sufficient,” he states, as if that is any consolation for more than a decade of fleecing taxpayers and energy consumers because the solar lobby funded his campaign coffers and inflated his ego.

Once those subsidies aren’t needed, he says, it will be time to explore what else we should subsidize to advance renewable energy in order to fight man-made climate change. He also suggests in the interview that environmental impacts should be a prime consideration in trade deals, and the only reason he didn’t support the Paris Accord (which Trump rescinded U.S. support for) was because it wasn’t hard enough on big polluters like China.

Honestly, if Tillis switched parties to run as a “conservative Democrat” in 2020 it would not be that surprising considering his tenure in Washington.

He apparently views conservatives as a bunch of extremists and the enemy of his bipartisan approach to growing government for the sake of the Chamber of Commerce crowd. He is now openly embracing the Left’s man-made climate change narrative, which has been nearly defeated by the well-place skepticism of the American people, and pushing government programs to address it that enrich his donors, elevate prices, and reduce freedom.

Tillis closes the interview with some predictable comments about amnesty for millions of DACA recipients being a “reasonable compromise” and decrying the distraction of “absurd floor speeches in the U.S. Senate for purely political reasons.”

It’d be nice to think he was referring to Democrats with the latter comment, but it is more likely that he is referring to principled conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) who actually take stands to defend liberty. That kind of thing irks Tillis, because it’s an attribute that is beyond him.