Congressman Pete Olson
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. Today Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) voted against H.R.9 the Climate Action Now Act which would force the United States to remain in the disastrous Paris Agreement. In August 2016 President Obama unilaterally committed the U.S. to this Agreement without seeking advice and approval from the U.S. Senate as required by our Constitution. The U.S. was one of just 12 countries to adopt the agreement through unilateral action by a chief executive even China received approval from its legislature.
The Agreement demands every country to take possibly dramatic steps to control their economy and carbon emissions. President Obama committed the United States to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025. Other countries such as China did not agree to cut emissions until 2030 if ever. Additionally President Obama determined the United States commitments before a cost-benefit analysis or economic impact study could be done and without outside stakeholder input.
This bill should be more appropriately named the Destroy the American Economy Act" Rep. Pete Olson said. This overreaching commitment would cost our economy $250 billion and cut 2.7 million jobs by 2025. America is doing our part to reduce emissions already. On our own we reduced our carbon emissions by 40 million metric tons in 2017 and have a national unemployment rate of 3.8! Instead of continuing our dominance as the worlds energy superpower this bill would force America to lose our competitiveness against OPEC and Russia in energy exports. Our energy development is cleaner and reduces global allies reliance on hostile regimes for energy. The policies laid out by Obama would destroy the Houston economy and force us to lose energy industry jobs causing the consumer to shoulder higher energy prices. I welcome innovation and improvement that improves our environment but I will not support policies and unconstitutional treaties that do not accomplish this and hurt the American people."
America is alreadyreducing its carbon emissions withoutunconstitutional international treaties like the Paris Agreement:
- This year the Department of Energy predicted that wind and solar power will be the fastest growing sources of energy in America in the next two years.
- More wind power will be put online next year than at any time in nearly a decade.
- By 2020 solar power in America will have jumped by almost a third over where we were as recently as the end of 2018.
- In TX-22 the NRG Parish plant added a massive successful carbon capture project to make an old coal plant climate-friendly by capturing the CO2 before it is emitted something rare even in countries with aggressive federal carbon mandates.
America is slashing carbon emissions and innovating not because of Washington but because Washington is getting out of the way and opening the door for private sector innovation.
