My thoughts exactly. Lost a ton of respect for him over that.

Yeah, repeating the 5 previous mass extinctions.

I may be wrong, but I think you may have misinterpreted what the outcome here was. 12 republicans joined with all the democrats to vote to repeal the ban that was still on the books after being found unconstitutional back in 2003. So, a good thing, even if it is unlikely to make it further than that.