GOP senators are looking to block the White House from taking money from other programs to fund a multi-billion dollar Green Climate Fund that President Obama committed to support at last week’s climate talks in Paris.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said he and a group of senators who he calls the “tigers” met Wednesday to discuss the White House strategy of providing money to the fund by taking it from other State Department programs.
“We had a meeting on this today,” Inhofe told reporters on a call. “We are checking to see if they are able to do that.”
The U.S. has pledged up to $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund. The Paris Agreement, in a non-legally binding portion of the agreement, sets the goal of spending to at least $100 billion per year to the developing world by 2020 to help fight climate change and increase renewable energy.
Democrats had attempted to get funding for the climate program in the spending bill that was agreed to late Tuesday night, but failed. So now, the administration is trying to shift money through a process known as re-programming, Inhofe said.
A staffer on the call said the White House is “going to try to re-obligate funds from other State [Department] programs,” which the committee believes “is a disingenuous use of funds.”
Inhofe said the funds for the climate program must be appropriated by Congress. The GOP railed against the Green Climate Fund in the weeks leading up to the Paris talks, threatening to take away money for what many saw as the linchpin in the deal agreed to by 196 countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists blame for driving manmade climate change.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday that Obama is interpreting the spending bill as allowing him to make the $500 million payment to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund since it does not ban the funding.
“Based on what we have reviewed so far, there are no restrictions on our ability to contribute to the Green Climate Fund,” Earnest said.
Congress and Obama are currently reviewing the 2,000-page, $1.1 trillion spending package. A Friday vote is set in the House and a Senate vote would come after the House’s approval.
