Former President Bill Clinton was in Southern California Tuesday night for a rally at UC Irvine where he announced his endorsement of State Senator Alan Lowenthal for Congress. Democratic candidate Lowenthal is running against Republican City Councilmember Gary DeLong in the contentious new 47th District.

Clinton also endorsed several other area Democrats including Assemblywoman Julia Brownley of Ventura, San Diego Port Commissioner Scott Peters, Dr. Raul Ruiz of Palm Springs and Mark Takano of Riverside. Nick Anas of the Democratic Party of Orange County said that the national Democratic Party decided on the five because officials have calculated they have the best chance of defeating their Republican opponents.

The Lake Forest Patch, which reported from Tuesday night’s rally, says that Clinton took several shots at DeLong’s recently caught-on-video claim at a public forum that global warming does not exist. “I don’t see any scientific evidence … that that is occuring,” DeLong said last week when asked if climate change was real and what (if anything) the government should be doing about it.

The comments quickly brought the Republican under scrutiny and directed Clinton’s Lowenthal-supporting speech towards praising the senator’s environmental efforts. 

“He is not just the chairman of the Senate Education Committee,” Clinton said of Lowenthal at the ralley. “He helped make the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles among the greenest and cleanest in the entire world and proved it’s good economics.”