Democratic Governors to Trump: Keep U.S. in Paris Climate Agreement
Govs. Kate Brown, Jay Inslee and Jerry Brown Eric Risberg / AP File Photo
It’s not yet clear whether the president will move to pull the U.S. out of the pact.
Democratic governors from a dozen U.S. states urged President Trump on Wednesday to maintain the nation’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement.
Under the U.N. accord, reached in 2015, the U.S. would have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The governors sent a letter to the president saying that goal was achievable and in the interest of Americans.
The letter refers to conditions such as rising sea levels, flooding, drought, snowpack decreases, forest fires and air pollution and says: “our states stand to bear the brunt of these climate change impacts and the economic costs running in the tens of billions of dollars or more.”
“If the U.S. does not maintain global climate leadership through national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to clean energy, China and India will,” the letter adds.
China and India are among the nearly 200 nations involved in the Paris agreement.
With some administration officials pressing for the renegotiation of the deal and others arguing it should be abandoned, Trump has not yet made a final decision about whether to nix U.S. involvement, The Washington Post reported Wednesday afternoon.
Democratic governors and city leaders have previously pushed back on the president’s environmental policies.
Trump in March signed an executive order that called for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt to take steps toward dismantling the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era initiative designed to curb emissions from coal-fired power plants.
In response, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and California Gov. Jerry Brown said their states would continue to aim for exceeding targets outlined in the plan and would work with other states “to help fill the void left by the federal government.”
Cuomo and Brown signed Wednesday’s letter. The other governors who signed included: John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Dannel Malloy of Connecticut, John Carney of Delaware, David Ige of Hawaii, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Kate Brown of Oregon, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, Terry McAuliffe of Virginia and Jay Inslee of Washington.
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Bill Lucia is a Senior Reporter for Government Executive’s Route Fifty and is based in Washington, D.C.
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