The White House is downplaying growing Republican opposition to President Obama’s climate change agenda, which reached a fever pitch ahead of the president’s trip to Paris to hash out a global deal on emissions reductions.
The White House says that despite GOP “hostility,” the administration has managed to advance its goals through regulation that doesn’t require congressional approval, downplaying concerns that the GOP could block Obama’s goals.
“We’re well aware that there is an abiding hostility in the Republican conference to facts and science and evidence” that support global warming, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Monday from Paris.
“But that has not prevented the administration from moving forward using the president’s executive authority to do things like double fuel-efficiency standards on automobiles and increase fuel-efficiency standards on large trucks,” he added.
“We have also moved forward to implement the Clean Power Plan … all of which will have an impact on reducing carbon [dioxide] pollution in the U.S.” Obama has pledged to cut carbon U.S. emissions under a United Nations climate change deal being negotiated in Paris, he added.
Obama was in Paris Monday to kick off two weeks of negotiations to reach a global deal on emissions reductions by Dec. 11, bringing nearly 200 countries to the table to agree to greenhouse gas emissions cuts.
Many scientists blame greenhouse gas emissions for causing the Earth’s climate to warm, resulting in more severe weather, droughts and even global strife and war.
Ahead of his trip to Paris, Congress took up resolutions to repeal the president’s regulations for power plants that are the linchpin in his plan to secure a deal in Paris. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Monday that “it certainly wouldn’t be responsible to attempt to negotiate commitments based upon a likely illegal power plan — one that may not even survive much longer anyway.”
The GOP leader was referring to his state and 26 others suing the Environmental Protection Agency over the Clean Power Plan, calling the rules on states and power plants illegal and unconstitutional.
Lawmakers also introduced non-binding resolutions last week that warn the president that any climate deal must go through Congress for approval. They warned Obama that if Congress does not have a say on the climate change agreement, it will zero-out the funding needed to move ahead under any deal that is reached.
The House is expected to take further action later this week in opposing the president’s climate agenda. Observers say many of the resolutions being voted on in the House and Senate lack the votes to survive a presidential veto. But they do send a message to the world that the president does not have ultimate authority to enter into an agreement on an emissions deal.
