House Democrats are planning to introduce a climate change proposal this week that will demand the United States live up to its commitments under the Paris Climate Accord, according to multiple Democratic sources.
The legislation – which is expected to be unveiled Wednesday, according to five sources – is part of a blitz by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats to refocus the House agenda as they adjust to a world after special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report to the Justice Department.
The move also comes as Senate Republican leaders plan to bring up Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s controversial Green New Deal for a vote this week.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), chairwoman of House Democrats’ special committee on climate change, is expected to lead a Wednesday press conference on the Democrats’ climate change legislation.
The bill would keep the United States in the Paris Climate Accord and require President Donald Trump’s administration to come up with a plan to meet the emissions reductions goals under that agreement within 120 days from enactment of the bill.
House Democrats are still debating how to move forward investigating Trump after Mueller’s report declined to rule on whether Trump obstructed justice and did not find adequate evidence that anyone in the president’s orbit conspired with Russians in the 2016 election.
The bill is just one of several non-Mueller agenda items Democrats are highlighting this week, just days after the special counsel’s investigation came to an end.
Democrats will also be introducing legislation related to stabilizing Obamacare, and will vote on legislation addressing the gender pay gap, which is expected to pass, and a resolution opposing the administration’s proposed ban on transgender troops.
The House will also vote to override Trump’s veto related to his border wall declaration but isn’t expected to be successful given the lack of Republican support.
Trump announced his intention to leave the global climate pact in July 2017, though he cannot formally do so until 2020. The U.S. pledged to slash its emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 under the agreement reached under the Obama administration.
Following through on Trump’s pledge to exit the pact would leave the U.S. virtually alone in the world at dismissing the risks of climate change. Democrats have continually bashed the move as ill-advised, while states and cities have attempted to fill the void through their own efforts to cut emissions.
The Senate could vote as early as Tuesday on the Green New Deal resolution pushed by Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hopes to use the vote to showcase internal Democratic divisions over the blueprint to decarbonize the U.S. economy within a decade, which Republicans have slammed as “socialist” and “tantamount to genocide.” Democrats are trying to blunt that attack with plans to vote present en masse and demands that Republicans outline their own plans to address climate change.
Castor’s planned bill introduction comes even before the new panel she chairs, the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, meets for the first time.
Pelosi created the committee this Congress without the ability to craft legislation or subpoena witnesses. Castor has since said the panel will hold field hearings and examine possible ways to address the problem.
One of the Democrats who will craft legislation, Energy and Commerce Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee Chairman Paul Tonko, told POLITICO last week he plans to work closely with Castor’s panel and sees their work as “totally complementary.”
“I see them as marketing and our work as product development,” Tonko said.
Tonko said his goal is to release a comprehensive approach to carbon pricing towards the end of this current Congress and released a set of principles to guide the drafting of that legislation last week.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine
Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/25/democrats-climate-change-1235484
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The Article Was Written/Published By: aadragna@politico.com (Anthony Adragna)
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