Environmental groups want Senate Democrats to strip language from any House bill funding the government that would prevent the Obama administration from restricting public financing for constructing coal-fired power plants overseas.
The chiefs for 15 environmental organizations said blocking the White House directive to the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation would hurt President Obama’s climate change agenda by potentially allowing the United States to contribute to an expansion of coal-based electricity, even as it tries to curtail its use domestically.
The policy, which still permits use of public funding for overseas coal-fired power plants when there are no readily-available alternatives in deeply impoverished areas, has been credited with driving other development institutions to adopt similar restrictions.
“The president’s policy started a positive trend with phasing out financing for dirty and outdated coal projects, reflected in subsequent policy announcements from the World Bank, [European Bank for Reconstruction and Development], and other national development finance agencies, including those of Nordic countries, UK, Germany and France,” they wrote to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.
This isn’t the first time House Republicans have taken aim at the public financing policy. Similar language made it through Congress in a January spending bill. Opponents now hope to scrap it from the funding measure to keep the federal government open through the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
Liberal Democrats and environmental groups have raised the policy’s profile in the intervening months. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., earlier this year tried to block the policy over a longer period of time, but opponents in his caucus got him to holster the measure.
Its reappearance, however, signals a battle over the policy next year when Republicans control both chambers of Congress.
