Politicshouse freedom caucusJim Jordan mark meadows

House Freedom Caucus Elects Mark Meadows Chairman

The man who helped push Boehner out is now heading the most conservative group in Congress.
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By 

Congressional Reporter, HuffPost

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Rep. Mark Meadows is known for both his friendly demeanor and strong conservative views.
Bill Clark via Getty Images

WASHINGTON ― After close to two years with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sitting atop the House Freedom Caucus, members of the conservative group elected Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) Monday night to serve as the new chairman.

In the basement of Tortilla Coast ― a Capitol Hill watering hole where the group used to meet until they started going to a local Chinese restaurant, which recently had a fire ― members unanimously elected Meadows to serve as the new chairman after Jordan declined to serve a third term.

The Freedom Caucus chairman was originally supposed to serve just one year, but members felt last November that they would be better served with some continuity.

“We’re going to continue to work on the success that Jim Jordan laid down before us,” Meadows told The Huffington Post Monday night, mentioning that Jordan would now serve as “chairman emeritus.”

Meadows did say he expected the Freedom Caucus to take a more “policy driven” approach this year, and that the group expected to hire a new policy director soon ― a position that has been vacant since the first policy director, Justin Ouimette, moved up to fill a vacancy as the HFC’s executive director.

Meadows, a Republican entering his third term, is famous in conservative circles for being the member who, in 2015, introduced a motion to vacate the chair against former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). While Boehner ultimately left on his own, Meadows’s resolution helped push the speaker out the door.

Meadows also temporarily lost his position chairing the Subcommittee on Government Operations after he voted against a rule on trade legislation, before Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and other GOP leaders realized they could face significant blowback if they didn’t reinstate him.

Meadows is known among Republican colleagues for his personal friendliness, despite being a hardline conservative.

That popularity and those right-wing credentials also played a part in Meadows establishing a cozy relationship with President-elect Donald Trump. The GOP candidate had taken to praising Meadows in the final weeks of the race when he was campaigning in North Carolina, even though Meadows originally backed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for president.

In a statement Monday night, Jordan congratulated Meadows on becoming the new chairman and said he was certain Meadows would work to fulfill the promises Republicans had made to their constituents.

“I know that Mark has a passion for conservative principles and for serving his district and ordinary Americans across the country who feel forgotten by Washington,” Jordan said.

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Before You Go

Republican Party Platform: The Environment
The environment is fine, and those who say otherwise are 'extremists.'(01 of06)
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“The central fact of any sensible environmental policy is that, year by year, the environment is improving,” the platform reads. “Our air and waterways are much healthier than they were a few decades ago. As a nation, we have drastically reduced pollution, mainstreamed recycling, educated the public, and avoided ecological degradation. Even if no additional controls are added, air pollution will continue to decline for the next several decades due to technological turnover of aging equipment. These successes become a challenge for Democratic Party environmental extremists, who must reach farther and demand more to sustain the illusion of an environmental crisis. That is why they routinely ignore costs, exaggerate benefits, and advocate the breaching of constitutional boundaries by federal agencies to impose environmental regulation.”

While it is true that some environmental concerns, like air quality and water pollution, have seen improvements in the U.S. in recent years, challenges remain.

More than half of the U.S. population lives with unhealthful levels of air pollution, according to an April American Lung Association report. It puts them "at risk for premature death and other serious health effects like lung cancer, asthma attacks, cardiovascular damage, and developmental and reproductive harm.” Water pollution is also a concern in some areas.

Climate change continues to have profound impacts on the country, including triggering extreme weather events and disruptions to agricultural production. (credit:Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Climate change is not that important. It's not even proven science.(02 of06)
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“Climate change is far from this nation’s most pressing national security issue,” the platform reads. “This is the triumph of extremism over common sense, and Congress must stop it.”

The platform also expresses skepticism about the theory of human-caused global warming, questioning the potential “bias” of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the international body that most climate scientists accept as the leading authority on climate change.

“Information concerning a changing climate, especially projections into the long-range future, must be based on dispassionate analysis of hard data. We will enforce that standard throughout the executive branch, among civil servants and presidential appointees alike. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution. Its unreliability is reflected in its intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy. We will evaluate its recommendations accordingly,” the platform states. (credit:Harold Cunningham/Getty Images)
Bye bye, EPA -- and its Clean Power Plan.(03 of06)
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The platform calls for converting the EPA into an “independent bipartisan commission.”

“We propose to shift responsibility for environmental regulation from the federal bureaucracy to the states,” it reads.

By doing this, the federal government would no longer be able to study the effects of pollution or establish safe standards, the news outlet Grist reports. “In a particularly Orwellian touch, the Republicans promise that a kneecapped EPA would adhere to ‘structural safeguards against politicized science.’ That actually means safeguards against scientific findings they don't like,” Grist notes.

The platform also calls for the abolishment of the Clean Power Plan, the EPA’s program to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants.

It’s “the centerpiece of the president’s war on coal,” the platform states. “We will do away with it altogether.” (credit:Jim Urquhart/Reuters)
Speaking of coal, did you know it’s 'clean?'(04 of06)
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“The Democratic Party does not understand that coal is an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource. Those who mine it and their families should be protected from the Democratic Party’s radical anticoal agenda,” the platform states. (credit:Associated Press)
Other fossil fuels are great too.(05 of06)
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The GOP platform vows to finish building the Keystone XL pipeline and “others” like it “as part of our commitment to North American energy security.””

It also promises to get rid of federal fracking regulations and carbon tax.

“We oppose any carbon tax,” the platform reads. “It would increase energy prices across the board, hitting hardest at the families who are already struggling to pay their bills in the Democrats’ no-growth economy.” (credit:Mike Segar/Reuters)
Paris Agreement? No thanks.(06 of06)
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“We reject the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement which represent only the personal commitments of their signatories,” the platform reads, referring to the 1992 and 2015 international agreements mandating global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The platform also calls for “an immediate halt to U.S. funding for the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change,” an international treaty aimed at finding global solutions to fight climate change.

“We firmly believe environmental problems are best solved by giving incentives for human ingenuity and the development of new technologies, not through top-down, command-and-control regulations that stifle economic growth and cost thousands of jobs,” the document reads. (credit:Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)
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