When the Idaho legislature adjourned sine die on March 28, 2018, a three-year-long struggle over the treatment of climate change in the state's new science standards ended, with a generally favorable outcome, as NCSE previously reported. Now, however, it appears that the legislative attack on climate change education in Idaho may resume, as Frontline (December 20, 2019) reports.
"Motivated by frustration over a number of recent controversies, legislators earlier this year chose not to renew Idaho's 8,000 pages of rules and regulations, which are typically renewed annually as a matter of course," according to the Frontline article. "In doing so, they resurrected a slew of hot-button issues that had previously been resolved—including the science standards," which legislators will be able to address when the legislature convenes in January 2020.
The chair of the House Education Committee, the center of the previous effort to downplay climate change in the standards, said that he expected "questions from members of the committee addressing ... some of this explanatory language on climate change,” adding, "Whether or not it rises to an issue that would cause the House Committee to reject those five paragraphs again, I don't know."
