Senate Democrats Push Customs Conferees to Strike Climate Language
A dozen Senate Democrats urged Customs Reauthorization conferees in recent days to omit language in a final compromise bill on banning climate change provisions in free trade agreements. House Republicans added the provision into that chamber’s bill before ultimately the measure went to a vote in mid-June (see 1506150012). “This language is misplaced, ambiguous, and serves only to send the wrong message to the world on the seriousness of the United States on climate policy,” said the letter (here), led by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo.
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The climate change provision may also contradict negotiating objectives in Trade Promotion Authority, the letter said. President Barack Obama signed that legislation, viewed as critical to locking down the Trans-Pacific Partnership, into law in late June. U.S. law now outlines dozens of negotiating objectives, some of which pertain to environmental issues. Those objectives “reduce the prospect that increased trade from our agreements will harm the environment,” said the lawmakers. “It is unclear how the House climate language in the Customs bill relates to these objectives, which bipartisan majorities of both the House and Senate approved.”
The signatories sent the letter to the Senate conferees, which include Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and a bipartisan group of five other Finance Committee members. The House hasn’t yet voted to go to conference or named conferees. Negotiations are currently underway both internally in the House and Senate and across the Capitol (see 1507210020). The conference, a mechanism to resolve differences in bills produced in the two chambers, is poised to tackle a wide range of issues (see 1507070066). Some Senate conferees have said they hope to still finish the conference and send a compromise bill to Obama before the August recess (see 1507160059).