Montana's House Bill 418, which would have dignified a litany of inaccurate and misleading claims about climate change as legislative findings and called for those findings to be offered "when providing education and informational materials on climate change," was tabled by the House Natural Resources Committee on February 20, 2019.
The committee's decision not to advance the bill followed a February 18, 2019, hearing, at which the bill's sponsor, Joe Read (R-District 93), complained, "CO2 has got a bad rap," according to the Missoulian (February 18, 2019). "The climate is changing," he acknowledged: "I'm just saying CO2 is not the culprit."
Speaking against the bill were the air quality bureau chief for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and representatives of the Montana Environmental Information Center, the Northern Plains Resource Council, the Montana Audubon Society, Montana Conservation Voters, and the Montana Public Interest Research Group.