GOP Climate Policy Survives Trump's Bombshell

Climate-conscious lawmakers are stumped on how to tackle carbon dioxide emissions at the federal level after President Trump's decision to pull the plug on U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement — but a few proposals are showing new signs of life.

In the seven days following Trump's White House Rose Garden announcement, nearly a dozen House members added their names to bipartisan legislation introduced by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) that would reinstitute expired tax credits for multiple low-carbon energy technologies.

Since February, 50 Republicans and 37 Democrats have endorsed H.R. 1090, which is meant to extend incentives for "orphan" technologies left out of a 2015 budget deal (Greenwire, Feb. 16). GOP Reps. Ken Calvert of California and Mike Simpson of Idaho added their names to the bill on June 2, one day after Trump announced his decision.

Others have turned their focus from CO2 to short-lived contributors to climate change.

Reps. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) yesterday introduced the bipartisan "Super Pollutant Emissions Reduction Act," or "SUPER Act," which deals not with carbon dioxide but with hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), methane, black carbon and other emissions that remain in the atmosphere for a short time but trap far more heat than CO2.

Peters said the bill, backed by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) and four other Democrats in the Climate Solutions Caucus, "demonstrates the growing bipartisan will in Congress to act on climate" in the wake of the Paris exit.

"Super pollutants are the low-hanging fruit in the fight to slow climate change," Peters said in a statement on the measure.

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