Climate Action Now Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Chair, I thank Mr. McCaul for his statements, and I agree with everything that was just stated. I have great respect for Chairman Engel and the bill's sponsor, Ms. Castor, and for their intentions and their advocacy. I look forward to working with them on this issue and many others because this is a very important issue for us to be working on, on both sides of the aisle in both the House and the Senate.

We all have constituents who want access to clean air and clean water. It is something that, whether you are representing a district in Flint, Michigan, or you are in Tampa, Florida, or the east end of Long Island, we all want to advocate for that for our constituents.

I was concerned with the negotiation of the Paris climate deal, that there wasn't more discussion. There wasn't any discussion in Congress. There weren't hearings and votes. There wasn't enough of an analysis done of the impact on the economy.

There is a debate now over numbers. I wish it was fleshed out. What will be the impact on GDP? What will be the impact on jobs? What will be the impact on energy costs for my constituents? There are a lot of numbers that are going around that are very concerning to my constituents.

Other countries were having debates, and they were having votes publicly. In this case, this was not submitted to the United States Senate for ratification, and there was some discussion earlier about what happened at the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on this topic.

What I asked of the witnesses was: ``Do any of the witnesses disagree with the statement that President Obama should have submitted it to the Senate for ratification?'' That was the exact wording of my question.

If you look at the video of the response, no one disagreed. I asked: ``Does anyone disagree?'' No one disagreed. There was one person, Admiral McGinn, who specified that his role was military, not political.

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Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member for yielding.

He said his role was military, not political, but nobody disagreed with that statement.

I believe it should have been submitted.

I also think it is outrageous that China and India are not doing more. They are emitters. China, in fact, won't even comply to reduce its carbon emissions until 2030. Many other countries that made commitments aren't fulfilling their commitments.

We needed a better deal for the world and other countries to step up and do more, more transparency and debates, and a vote here in Congress. That is in the best interests of all our constituents.

Hopefully, we can agree on the numbers and a process going forward, and we can work together on a bipartisan basis.

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