Pelosi’s new climate bill seeks to make Paris accord legally binding on US

By Chris White

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues are pushing a new climate bill that could effectively reshape the entire Paris accord and legally bind the Trump administration to the deal.

Pelosi’s Climate Action Now Act, announced Wednesday to media fanfare, aims to prevent President Donald Trump from removing the U.S. from the 2016 accord. The deal, which compels the country to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025, is a non-binding agreement made after former President Barack Obama was unable to get the required votes in Congress to make it a treaty.

Wikimedia Commons/Julio Obscura

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

If the California Democrat wants to legally force Trump to abide by the deal, then she needs to go through the complicated legal process to make the deal a treaty rather than a non-binding deal, Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Chris Horner told The Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday.

“The bill asserts that Paris is presently binding on the U.S., would bind us to its terms if we remain signatories, and seeks to ensure that Pres. Trump cannot consummate his promise to withdraw by his announced pathway before they have a chance to retake the White House and lock us in,” he said via email.

Horner added: “Or, if you want legislative involvement suddenly, it’s a treaty, as it obviously is, and transmit it to the Senate for a ratification vote. If Speaker Pelosi wants to formalize matters, let’s do it the way the rest of the world did particularly our European models — by submitting it to our elected representatives for a vote, as a treaty, pursuant to our governing constitution.”

Pelosi’s bill is a watered-down version of New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, which called for a near complete shift away from fossil fuels and toward green energy. The GND was torpedoed in the Senate Tuesday after Republicans voted against the resolution while Democrats voted present.

European officials heavily criticized Trump for deciding to leave the Paris accord shortly after taking office. Democratic governors and wealthy environmental groups created the Global Climate Action Summit in September 2018, bringing together activists to promote the goals of the Paris climate accord.

The new bill could hit some speed bumps, especially if it attempts to bind Trump to the dying deal. Obama joined the Paris accord after years of working behind the scenes to craft what would become a non-binding deal, but he did so without submitting it to the Senate. His signature achievement was ultimately dashed after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost to Trump.

Tethering the president and the country to Paris could affect the other participants in the deal.

China, one of the more than 200 other countries that signed on to the deal, is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, and made no commitment to cut greenhouse emissions. Instead, the communist nation said it would “peak” emissions and the amount it emits per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. China is also not legally obligated to comply with the accord.

China has taken steps in recent years to close down coal mines and shut down coal-fired power plants, but those measures are largely designed to solve the country’s poor air quality. Beijing also recently became the first Chinese city to replace all its coal power with natural gas.

Pelosi’s office has not yet responded to TheDCNF’s request for comment about whether the California Democrat is seeking to make the accord a treaty.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Julio Obscura

8 thoughts on “Pelosi’s new climate bill seeks to make Paris accord legally binding on US

  1. This old traitorous bat needs to go. In fact, all the Democrats need to go. They are socialists and will take every dime of yours to ensure low life that doesn’t want to work will live just as comfortably as you do.

    • petemo

      You have a valid point. They are unAmerican ,do not believe in the Constitution.
      They are elected,swear a oath to the Constitution and promptly start working to violate it,subjugate “We The People”,they want to ban this and that and as they don’t believe in the Constitution and it’s protections.Why not just ban Leftists and return to a Constitutional Republic.

  2. How much did this cost? Do these people even perform any REAL WORK? This has a snowball chance in hell of passing the Senate,never mind Trump.
    I feel like I live in a household that has 2 divorced parents living under the same roof while trying to govern.Where are the bills that can worked out between the parties? These people won’t even talk to each other anymore.I remember Reagan and Tip O’Neal working out compromise to get legislation through.Our government is completely dysfunctional,and there’s not one thing we can do about it.

  3. It will never pass the Senate or it will be vetoed.
    Pelosi is having revenge for being trounced regarding the ludicrous and unaffordable GND.
    No Democrats voted in favor of their own proposal.
    They all voted present.
    Cowards they are.
    They steal our money on the sly.
    They will take more if they get to control the Senate and White House.
    Pelosi also wants a campaign issue for the next election.
    It is all about power, using the ever-increasing immigrant vote as a Troyan Horse to subvert thé US way of life towards Socialism, a la Bernie Sanders, the most rabid of them all.
    Pelosi is merely having a vote on this bill to get almost all Democrat reps to vote for it and expects almost all Republican reps to vote against it, as they should if they are not RINOs.

  4. Could this be the reason the Anti American Left wants America to be answerable to the Paris accord,ah could be.

    U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare

        2/10/2015

    Economic Systems: The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global warming is all about man’s stewardship of the environment. But we know that’s not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this.

    At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.

    “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.

    Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

    The only economic model in the last 150 years that has ever worked at all is capitalism. The evidence is prima facie: From a feudal order that lasted a thousand years, produced zero growth and kept workdays long and lifespans short, the countries that have embraced free-market capitalism have enjoyed a system in which output has increased 70-fold, work days have been halved and lifespans doubled.

    Figueres is perhaps the perfect person for the job of transforming “the economic development model” because she’s really never seen it work. “If you look at Ms. Figueres’ Wikipedia page,” notes Cato economist Dan Mitchell: Making the world look at their right hand while they choke developed economies with their left.

    https://www.investors.com/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism

  5. Why on earth would any AMERICAN want a Anti American determining what American’s are saddled with. The same mexifornian san franciso twit that can’t see a emergency on the border can see imaginary global tardism that never existed. I suggest if pizlousie is so concerned about this issue she turn
    over all her assets to the eurotards to fight the imagery gorbul$hit. Pres Trump
    was correct in getting us out of the one sided USA pays all non binding on all others agreement. Pizlousie should be declared a enemy of the state.. as well as 99% of her leftist cronies.

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