A leading Democratic voice for climate change on Capitol Hill used Saturday’s agreement on a global emissions deal in Paris to criticize the GOP for seeking to lift a 40-year-old ban on oil exports in an omnibus spending bill.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., suggested that the agreement in Paris represented the world going in the right direction, while Republicans attempt to undo policies that will increase fossil fuel use, which many scientists blame for causing the Earth’s climate to warm.
“Even as Republicans and Big Oil work to lift the crude oil export ban here in the United States, the nations of the world have taken one giant leap forward with this agreement,” said Markey, responding to a deal among nearly 200 nations in Paris Saturday on cutting greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming.
Markey, and other climate proponents in the Senate, have been vocal about extending tax credits for the wind industry at least 10 years, or make them permanent, if the GOP wants their support for lifting the ban on oil exports in the major spending package. That argument is the crux of a deal being worked out this weekend in Washington in order to pass the bill before Congress departs for the holidays next week.
Republican aides and industry lobbyists say a 10-year tax credit does not have Republican support, and must be dialed back to reach a compromise. The GOP has made lifting the 40-year-old ban on oil exports a key priority this year. It would allow shale oil producers to sell their product on the open market, which they currently are prohibited to do on a large scale.
Instead of lifting the oil export ban, Markey said it was time for America “to move forward with President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and enact the clean energy policies that will create jobs here in American and fulfill our moral duty to future generations.”
The Clean Power Plan is being challenged in federal appeals court by over half the nation. Twenty-seven states say the far-reaching regulations on existing power plants go well beyond what is allowable under the law, and are unconstitutional. Republicans argue that the rules will drive up costs and undermine the reliability of the power grid.
The plan is the linchpin in President Obama’s commitment to the Paris deal.
