In a setback to President Barack Obama at a time when he is pushing for an ambitious global agreement on climate change, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has rejected his domestic regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions, thereby sending out the grim message that the United States itself is deeply divided on the subject.
Voting predominantly along party lines, the House adopted two resolutions to prevent the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing rules that the Obama administration had released earlier this year to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
With the Senate having already voted in a similar fashion, the measures will now be sent to the White House, which has already signalled that President Obama would veto them. Democrats expect the Obama rules to prevail since Republicans do not have the requisite Senate votes to override a presidential veto.
The House vote came just hours after Obama urged the international community to hammer out a comprehensive deal at the Paris climate talks, and went on to issue a call for a “legally binding” provision to enforce targets that various countries have announced to cut their own carbon output.
Citing the Congress’s power to review the administration’s regulations on the subject, Republican lawmakers said the vote demonstrates the deep divisions within US on the subject.
“I think when you weigh the costs and benefits against these so-called legally binding obligations, they don’t add up,” Republican Speaker Paul Ryan said. Republicans for long have disagreed with Democrats on the whole gamut of climate change and global warming. In line with this approach, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump dismissed Obama’s comments at the Paris summit as one of the “dumbest things” ever said.
“I think one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics — in the history of politics as I know it, which is pretty good — was Obama’s statement that our No.1 problem is global warming,” Trump told MSNBC.