Posted on 05/29/2017 12:19:10 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
European countries and major corporations are pressuring President Donald Trump to remain in the Paris climate agreement despite his promises on the campaign trail to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era deal that never gained congressional approval.
The Trump administration so far is sticking with being undecided—at least until Trump returns to the United States from his first foreign trip, where on Friday, he’s meeting with Group of Seven ally countries, which support the agreement.
Back home, the pressure is growing from multinational corporations, even the energy sector, which have opposed stricter limitations on carbon.
Exxon Mobil Corp., once run by Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP are urging the administration to remain in the agreement. Meanwhile, coal mining company Cloud Peak Energy urged the administration to remain.
“BP and Shell are European companies and it’s impossible to do business in Europe without towing the political line,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told The Daily Signal. He added that for oil and gas companies, “the only way to get the price of gas back up is to kill coal. The Paris Agreement kills fossil fuels, but it kills coal first.”
Ebell was part of Trump’s transition team overseeing the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute sponsored an ad showing Trump during the campaign saying, “We are going to cancel the Paris climate agreement and stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.”
While corporate support might seem surprising, it’s very much the same old story for large companies seeking an advantage over smaller competitors, said Katie Tubb, a policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation.
“Big business and big government often go hand-in-hand. Big businesses generally can absorb and adapt to the costs of complying with burdensome regulation, of which Paris is a wellspring,” Tubb told The Daily Signal. “Smaller companies have a much harder time complying, which means less competition for big business. This is especially true if big business can influence the substance of regulations to favor themselves or freeze out competitors. I think in other cases; these large companies are just looking for PR points.”
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry led the United States into the Paris climate change agreement, along with 170 other countries. The agreement commits member countries to shift their energy industries away from fossil fuels and toward green energy.
Two dozen major U.S. companies—including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, the Hartford, Levi Strauss, PG&E, and Morgan Stanley—sent an open letter to Trump published in The New York Times and other newspapers across the country, urging him to remain in the deal. The letter says:
By requiring action by developed and developing countries alike, the agreement ensures a more balanced global effort, reducing the risk of competitive imbalances for U.S. companies … By expanding markets for innovative clean technologies, the agreement generates jobs and economic growth. U.S. companies are well positioned to lead in these markets.
U.S. business is best served by a stable and practical framework facilitating an effective and balanced global response. The Paris Agreement provides such a framework. As other countries invest in advanced technologies and move forward with the Paris Agreement, we believe the United States can best exercise global leadership and advance U.S. interests by remaining a full partner in this vital global effort.
Generally, larger energy companies have an advantage under the climate deal, said Fred Palmer, senior fellow for energy and climate at the Heartland Institute.
“Follow the money,” Palmer told The Daily Signal. “There are companies that want to game the system of using [carbon dioxide] as a currency to make money.”
After meetings at the Vatican earlier this week, Tillerson said, “The president indicated we’re still thinking about that, that he hasn’t made a final decision.”
Ahead of the G7 meeting, Trump chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, the director of the White House National Economic Council, told a pool reporter Friday that the president is weighing both sides.
“I think he’s leaning to understand the European position. Look, as you know from the U.S., there’s very strong views on both sides,” Cohn said. “He also knows that Paris has important meaning to many of the European leaders. And he wants to clearly hear what the European leaders have to say.”
Ebell warned that if the administration seeks to make a deal to stay in the agreement, perhaps with a lower commitment than the Obama administration pledged, then a future president could simply increase the U.S. commitment. That’s why, Ebell said, it’s best for the United States to get out.
“Obviously foreign leaders don’t care what Trump promised voters in the campaign,” Ebell said.
To be sure, many U.S. business groups oppose the Paris Agreement, such as the Industrial Energy Consumers of America—which represents manufacturers and other larger energy-using businesses—that wrote an April 24 letter to administration officials. The letter said:
We are the ones who eventually bear the costs of government imposed [greenhouse gas] reduction schemes. At the same time, we are often already economically disadvantaged, as compared to global competitors who are subsidized or protected by their governments.
Given the above concerns, IECA fails to see the benefit of the Paris Climate Accord. And, the long-term implications of the Paris Climate Accord, which includes greater future [greenhouse gas] reduction requirements, raises serious competitiveness and job implications for [energy-intensive, trade-exposed] industries.
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The Possible Reasons Big Corporations Are So Eager for Trump to Break His Promise on Paris Climate Deal
I didn’t realize Trump made any promises about the paris climate deal. Except that he would back out. Which all sources indicate he is doing.
That's BS. Ours are the major corporations. Europe can shut them out but then Euope raises iits own costs oth financially and diplomatically as I am sure that sort of government action would bring retaliation from this end.
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Sen. Rand Paul: Say au revoir to Paris Climate Agreement
Republican Senators Urge Trump to Exit Paris Climate Deal
Global Warming on Free Republic here, here, and here
There is an entire financial strategy that has been created surrounding tax credits and similar invented incentives.
Companies have been working on it for decades. There are billions at stake.
Of course the companies that have developed strategies to game the system want to be able to use those strategies. They pick up the profits and slough the costs to the US Government and, of course, therefore to us.
President Trump promised he would get out of the Paris Climate Hoax. We expect him to keep his promises. If he does, all will be well for 2020.
It’s easier to dig up carbon credits than real coal or oil.
Interesting how the press keeps trotting out Cloud Peak as a representative of the U.S. coal industry. Cloud Peak is nether representative nor American. Its the residue of Rio Tinto's mining coal operations in the U.S. and its run by a British guy. When Peabody was sending Palmer out on the ciruit, Rio Tinto was sending a British guy to the same meetings.
Because it is a ridiculous money drain and job killer
Copy that to Jvanka who are urging Trump to stay with the Paris accords.
I suspect, he’ll call it a treaty and submit it for 2/3 senate ratification. This will kill the deal.
Because the global warming hoax is a real drag on the economy.
(like governments fining farmers for plowing their own land or collecting rain water)
(Solindra anyone?)
On the face of it, that would seem the best way to put a stake through the heart of this monster.
“I suspect, he’ll call it a treaty and submit it for 2/3 senate ratification. This will kill the deal”
I think he might do this but don’t be so sure it would not get the 2/3. It would start with 48 yes votes before any debate. I think there is a damn good chance the POS would pass. There are a lot of AGW fools on the GOP side.
I am already ticked he didn’t just get us out as promised leaving us squirming while he “evolves” on the issue as Cohn put it.
That really doesn't mean they wouldn't do it. I mean they've already allowed LOTS of people into their countries whose intent is to destroy them. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
BTW, you need to proof-read your posts a little better. :)
Patriots are reminded that federal government involvement in worldwide, politically correct global warming politics is not simply a matter of opinion.
In fact, even if the whole world, including Pres. Trump, supported US financial involvement in uncountable, worldwide government spending using the excuse of global warming, it remains that the states have never expressly constitutionally delegated to the feds the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for global warming purposes, not even for the states.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
The feds would first need to successfully petition the states for a global warming amendment to the Constitution in order for the feds to do anything just in the states, federal involvement in world-wide global warming politics another major constitutional hurdle.
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