‘America is back,’ Pelosi says in Glasgow
GLASGOW, Scotland — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and nearly two dozen House Democrats barnstormed global climate talks Tuesday, claiming that “America is back” in the effort to slow global warming, even as their party remains divided over a $1.85 trillion budget bill upon which their climate agenda depends.
Pelosi noted that she was accompanied by a record number of lawmakers attending a U.N. climate summit and said they had flown to Glasgow, Scotland, “ready to take on the challenge, to meet the moment.”
But they have not yet. The stalled legislation includes $555 billion in tax credits and incentives to promote wind and solar power, electric vehicles, climate-friendly agriculture and forestry programs, and a host of other clean energy programs.
Those measures would bring the country about halfway to President Joe Biden’s goal of cutting the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% from 2005 levels by 2030.
Pelosi said it would be “the most ambitious and consequential climate and clean energy investment of all time.”
She said House lawmakers intended to pass that bill next week, but a handful of moderate Democrats have raised concerns about its price tag. Meanwhile, the legislation has been held up in the Senate largely because of objections of one Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin’s state is a coal and gas producer, he has personal financial ties to the coal industry, and he has said he opposes policies that would harm fossil fuels.
Pelosi noted that last week Congress had approved a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that includes billions of dollars to help fortify communities against the impacts of climate disasters. But the money and policies to cut the emissions that are causing global warming are embedded in the legislation that has yet to pass.
In a series of meetings and speeches, lawmakers said they felt the weight of expectations from the rest of the world.
Of all nations, the United States has pumped the most carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — pollution that is trapping heat and driving up average global temperatures.
It has also promised to act on climate change, only to fall short several times in past decades. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was among the lawmakers traveling with Pelosi, said countries should hold the U.S. to account for its promise to significantly reduce emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas.