WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee’s Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, joined 13 Republican Senators in sending a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry urging the administration’s candidness with the international community regarding the durability of commitments made on behalf of the United States under the Paris Agreement.
“We are concerned the administration has not been forthright in acknowledging the legal limitations of the president’s domestic climate actions, primarily the Clean Power Plan, and the pathway the administration has taken to join the Agreement,” Capito and the Senators said in the letter. “Bypassing the U.S. Congress for convenience has consequences. Given the United States’ central role to the durability of this Agreement, these consequences warrant a clear understanding by invested parties. [In] the context of climate change policies … Congress’s unwillingness to support the president’s international efforts is not the result of gridlock – it is the result of explicit opposition.”
The Senators continued, “Paris Agreement parties relying on fulfillment of promised U.S. climate actions should be fully aware that the administration’s ’commitment’ is opposed by the majority of Congress, its legal soundness is questioned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and, under the best of circumstances, the country will fall short of meeting the 26 to 28 percent reduction by a range of forty-five to sixty percent. Most importantly, any future administration will have numerous options to forego President Obama’s political commitments under the Paris Agreement and the fact that it will soon be in force is of no consequence.”
A full copy of the letter can be found here.
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