Providing for Consideration of H.R. Climate Action Now Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Arizona for yielding and for leading on this issue for the economy of the United States of America and for hardworking families.

If you look at what getting back in the Paris accord would do, Mr. Speaker, it would wreck our economy in many different ways.

The people hardest hit by the United States getting back in the Paris accord are the very people who don't need to be hit the most, those with the lowest income in our country, because it would increase energy costs. By outside estimates, this bill, complying with the unachievable requirements that they have in this bill, would cost up to 2.7 million American jobs.

Those jobs wouldn't just evaporate, Mr. Speaker. Those jobs, ironically, if we were to get back into the Paris accord, would go to China and India because China and India, according to the accord, are exempt until 2030. They don't even have to comply.

By the way, why don't we look at the countries that are begging us to get back into the Paris accord? Not one of the countries in the entire European Union is in compliance with the unachievable targets set in the Paris accord. In fact, France, which Paris is in, is not even in compliance with the target.

Then they tell us: Hey, America, why don't you come into this thing, this disaster of an agreement that none of the countries in Europe are in compliance with?

Then you look at what it would do, again, to wreck America's economy.

Let's talk about carbon emissions. If this is really about carbon emissions, like the Green New Deal and other crazy ideas that would wreck the American economy, get rid of fossil fuels. You don't have to fly around on planes anymore. You don't have to worry about missing a flight because there wouldn't be any flights. That is how ludicrous their ideas are, yet they believe in them.

They all do this under the guise of carbon emissions. As they say on the other side, climate action does have some cost. Let's talk about that cost: $250 billion in higher taxes, as well as lower wages for American families.

You wonder why they are rioting in the streets of France. In Paris, where the accord was signed, they are having riots over this radical idea. By the way, again, they are not even in compliance with it.

Then you look at where these jobs would go. The jobs would go to China and India, which are not only exempt, Mr. Speaker, but those countries actually emit four or five times more carbon than we do here because we have good environmental standards in America.

We have been decreasing our carbon emissions in America. In fact, we have decreased our carbon emissions down to the level that they were at in the year 2000.

We are doing it not by signing some radical job-killing accord; we are doing it through American ingenuity, something we have always celebrated in this country, something that we are the world leader at.

Why would we want to give that advantage away? And not just giving it away in the name of saving the planet, giving it away to countries like China and India, who are increasing carbon emissions dramatically higher than us.

This is a disaster for our economy. We need to reject this bad deal.

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