While a U.S. delegation tries to reassure the world in Paris that the United States will be able to live up to its pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leaders in Congress are working to undermine President Obama at home.
The House Science Committee met Tuesday morning to emphasize the belief of Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, that any agreement reached in Paris is dead in the water in Congress.
The United Nations’ 21st Conference of the Parties, better known as COP21, is meeting in the City of Lights during the next two weeks. The summit seeks to reach an agreement among 196 countries to cut their carbon emissions to reduce the effects of climate change.
The United States’ major commitment to the agreement is the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature environmental regulation on power plants. Smith says the plan likely will be struck down by the courts and would hurt the U.S. economy for little gain.
“The president’s pledge to the U.N. would increase electricity costs, ration energy and slow economic growth,” Smith said. “The president’s plan ignores good science and only seeks to advance a partisan political agenda.”
The House is set to take up resolutions to block the Clean Power Plan on Tuesday. The resolutions already have passed the Senate, and Obama has indicated he would veto them should the House pass them.
The countries have submitted their plans to limit their carbon emissions, but scientists say the plans aren’t enough to slow global warming past dangerous levels.
According to the U.N., the plans would keep global warming to 2.7 degrees Celsius, as opposed to more than 4 degrees Celsius if nothing were done. However, the plans do not reach the 2-degree level needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change, they say.
Many scientists believe the burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere cause manmade climate change.
Obama pledged the United States would reduce carbon emissions between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels within 10 years.
The pledge is critical in terms of symbolism if not in actual impact on climate change, said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, a nonpartisan and nonprofit group operating in 50 countries.
“We believe the U.S. political and technical leadership in solving the great challenge of climate change is absolutely necessary,” he said. “As with many challenges, the U.S. is an indispensable leader.”
While Democrats see that symbolic move as a positive, Republicans have teed off on that point, asking why U.S. ratepayers need to pay more for energy to make a political point.
Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and former domestic policy director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, believes the United States isn’t showing leadership on climate change but instead applying “peer pressure.”
Cass said any agreement in Paris would not only lead to Americans paying more for energy but also would lead to taxpayers sending billions abroad to poorer nations that may not take any actions to prevent climate change. Part of the Paris deal calls for a $100 billion-a-year Green Climate Fund to help poorer nations deal with climate change.
“This will be the president’s climate legacy and it is not a good one,” he said.
There are also questions about what parts of any potential agreement in Paris would be legally binding.
Smith said Obama purposely avoided pursuing the Paris agreement as a treaty because he knew it wouldn’t get through the Senate. However, judging by Obama’s comments in Paris Tuesday, there would be some legally binding portions of the agreement that would need to be approved by Congress.
Andrew Grossman, associate at Baker and Hostetler, LLP, said any sort of contribution to a “green fund” would have to be approved by Congress. Under the Constitution, no money can be taken from the Treasury without the permission of Congress.
“There is an insurmountable legal issue here,” Grossman said.
“An agreement containing binding financial commitment cannot be executed on the president’s sole authority,” he added.
Still, Rep. Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, encouraged Obama’s action in Paris and expressed her pride in him taking steps to address climate change.
“The global climate system is complex. Solutions to address these problems are equally complex,” she said. “However, I am confident that the enthusiasm for change going into the Paris conference will lead to a meaningful agreement to reduce carbon emissions.”
