A number of top Senate Republicans told President Trump on Thursday to make a “clean break” and withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement or risk up-ending his goals of scrapping former President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with 20 other top Republicans, signed a letter warning the president that remaining in the deal “would subject the United States to significant litigation risk that could up-end your administration’s ability to fulfill its goal of rescinding the Clean Power Plan.”
McConnell and the senators urged the president to make “a clean break from the Paris Agreement.”
The letter came as Trump prepares to meet with members of the Group of Seven industrial nations on Friday, where it is expected he will be prodded not to leave the agreement. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday in Rome that Trump will not make a decision until after the G7 meeting in Sicily and he returns to Washington.
The senators’ arguments on why the president should exit the agreement, and the litigation risks, mirrored the advice that 10 Republican state attorneys general made in a separate letter sent to Trump Wednesday.
McConnell’s letter said climate activists and environmental groups could use the Paris agreement to bolster arguments for why the Environmental Protection Agency should keep climate regulations in place and resurrect “burdensome regulations” such as the Clean Power Plan that Trump is trying to scrap.
“It is clear that those advocating for greenhouse gas regulations will use the Paris Agreement as a legal defense against your actions to rescind the Clean Power Plan if you decide to remain in the Paris Agreement,” the letter read. “This is why it is so important for you to make a clean exit from the agreement.’
The letter was organized by Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, former chairman of the committee and the chamber’s leading climate change critic.
