[Vision2020] EcoWatch 5-3-19 "US House Passes First Major Climate Bill in 10 Years"

[Ted Moffett]

Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

Wow!  The republicans have a climate change revolt in their ranks against
the party line opposition to addressing global warming!  Three republicans
voted with US House democrats?

I'm just joking, of course!
-------------------------
>From article copied below:

"The bill passed 231 to 190, with three Republicans crossing the aisle to
approve it with the Democrats."
-----------------------

“'Environmental protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive,'
Florida Republican Representative Vern Buchanan, one of three Republicans
who voted for the act, said, as The Washington Post reported."'
--------------------------------------House Passes First Major Climate Bill
in 10 Years

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/03/paris-trump-house-passes-first-major-climate-bill-10-years

https://www.ecowatch.com/house-climate-change-bill-2636180068.html

Olivia Rosane
May 3, 2019

The U.S. House of Representatives approved its first major climate change
<https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change> legislation in a decade on
Thursday, Reuters reported
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climate/house-backs-paris-agreement-in-first-climate-bill-in-a-decade-idUSKCN1S81OI>.
The Climate Action Now Act
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/9/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22HR+9%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=1>
would
require President Donald Trump <https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump> to
keep the U.S. in the Paris agreement
<https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement>, mandating that he outlines
steps to reduce greenhouse emissions and prohibiting him from using federal
funds to withdraw from the agreement.

The bill passed 231 to 190, with three Republicans crossing the aisle to
approve it with the Democrats. It is unlikely to pass the Senate, but the
Democrats see it as a way to stake out a climate position ahead of the 2020
election and to signal to the international community that a future
Democratic president would stay in the agreement, The Washington Post
reported
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/05/02/house-passes-bill-force-us-stay-paris-climate-agreement/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.997fe152f592>
.

“Passing this bill is an important signal to our allies, and my expectation
is that when we act, we'll see increased ambition from them, too,”
Democratic Florida Representative Kathy Castor, who sponsored the
legislation and chairs the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis,
told the press before the vote, as The Washington Post reported.

While Trump promised to withdraw
<https://www.ecowatch.com/trumps-withdraws-paris-climate-agreement-2429436831.html>
from
the Paris accord in June 2017, he cannot legally do so until November 2020.

“That's an interesting date, isn't it?” Castor said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill would “go nowhere” in
the Senate and called it a “futile gesture to handcuff the U.S. economy,” The
New York Times reported
<https://www.nytimes.com/get-started?EXIT_URI=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F05%2F02%2Fclimate%2Fcongress-paris-climate-agreement.html&auth=login-facebook&login=facebook>
.

In debating the measure, House Republicans focused on the Paris agreement's
impact on the U.S. economy and either avoided discussions of the science of
climate change itself or acknowledged it as an issue worth confronting.
Instead of denying science, they argued that other countries in the
agreement, particularly China and India, had not pledged enough.

The Obama administration had promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to
28 percent of 2005 levels by 2025; China promised to slow its emissions
growth and reach peak carbon in 2030, and India said it would reduce the
carbon dioxide emitted per unit of gross domestic product while still
allowing overall emissions to rise.

In the debate ahead of the vote, Texas Republican Representative Jodey
Arrington called the deal “a gift to our enemies” and Louisiana Republican
Steve Scalise said it would send jobs to China and India. However, not all
Republicans portrayed climate action as a threat to the U.S. economy.

“Environmental protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive,”
Florida Republican Representative Vern Buchanan, one of three Republicans
who voted for the act, said, as The Washington Post reported.

Some green groups applauded Thursday's vote. Sierra Club
<https://www.sierraclub.org/home> Executive Director Michael Brune called
the bill
<https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2019/05/house-democrats-pass-historic-bill-rebuke-trump-paris-agreement>
“an
important opportunity for every member of Congress to affirm on the record
that the U.S. must be a leader in addressing the climate crisis.”

Others argued
<https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-action-now-act-2636094272.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5>
that
it did not go far enough.

“The latest science is clear: In order to adequately address deepening
climate chaos, we must transition completely to clean, renewable energy
<https://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/> generation in little more than
a decade,” Food & Water Watch <https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/> Executive
Director Wenonah Hauter said ahead of the vote. “The terms of the Paris
accord aren't low-hanging fruit, they're fruit that has fallen to the
ground and begun to rot.”

Scientists have said that if all the world's countries met their pledges
under the Paris agreement, it would not be enough to prevent a dangerous
rise in temperature, The New York Times reported.

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
<https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/alexandria-ocasio-cortez>, who has championed
a more ambitious Green New Deal
<https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/green-new-deal> that would transition the U.S. to
net zero emissions within 10 years, said Thursday's act needed to be the
precursor to more legislation.

“The idea that we can just reintroduce 2009 policies is not reflective of
action that is necessary for now in the world of today,” she said.

2009 was the last year that the House passed major climate change
legislation, according to The New York Times. That bill would have put a
cap on U.S. emissions and let businesses and utilities trade permits to
emit, but it failed to advance in the Senate.
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