While President Obama and his team of negotiators celebrate the Paris Agreement, top Republican senators are steeling themselves for a fight over the deal.
Senior White House officials said Saturday the deal doesn’t need to go to the Senate to be voted on, but it doesn’t appear that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will allow the deal to get through his Republican-led Senate.
McConnell, in a statement issued Saturday, said Obama took a step too far with the Paris deal.
“The President is making promises he can’t keep, writing checks he can’t cash, and stepping over the middle class to take credit for an ‘agreement’ that is subject to being shredded in 13 months,” McConnell said. “His commitments to help leaders abroad are based on proposals at home that would hurt jobs and raise utility rates for American families.”
The Paris Agreement was approved by 196 countries from around the world in the French capital Saturday afternoon after all-night negotiations and some last minute haggling. It seeks to hold global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, with an eye toward keeping it below 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
None of the GOP presidential candidates made a statement about the Paris Agreement on Saturday, but it’s unlikely to find any backers in the Republican field. Many candidates have said they would immediately repeal key regulations that are central to the Obama administration’s climate legacy should they become president.
While the Obama administration contends that all the legally binding aspects of the deal can be accomplished through executive action, GOP senators are not going to take his word for it.
Robert Dillon, spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the committee would do its due diligence.
“Our only comment at this time is that the Senate will have to review and ratify — or not — anything binding in the agreement, as required by the Constitution,” he said.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, promised to hold the administration’s feet to the fire in the coming months.
He said the agreement has different transparency standards between developed and developing countries, gives an unfair advantage to countries like China and India and has unrealistic goals.
He added President Obama’s pledge to spend $3 billion on a so-called Green Climate Fund would stand no change in the Republican-controlled Congress.
Inhofe, a climate change doubter who once brought a snowball onto the floor of the Senate to show his belief that global warming is not taking place, said he plans to make life difficult for administration officials in 2016.
“Many questions have remained unanswered since the administration refused to testify in October to its plans to meet emissions reduction targets,” he said. “I will invite key administration officials from [the Environmental Protection Agency], [Council on Environmental Quality] and the State Department to testify early next year to assess the Senate’s role and explain what exactly this final agreement means for the American people.”
House Republicans, while they won’t be directly responsible for approving the agreement, will still have an oversight role to play.
Dan Schneider, spokesman for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said committee members are looking forward to examining the deal.
“We will continue to review the developments in Paris and we remain focused on protecting American ratepayers and our economic future,” Schneider said.
McConnell pointed to the Senate-led resolution to block the Clean Power Plan, which sets limits on carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants, as proof that Obama’s plan to fight climate change will likely fail if it faces the Senate.
The Senate’s top Republican warned those who negotiated with American diplomats to not celebrate just yet.
“Before his international partners pop the champagne, they should remember that this is an unattainable deal based on a domestic energy plan that is likely illegal, that half the states have sued to halt and that Congress has already voted to reject,” McConnell said.
