Republicans to cut funding from Obama's global warming agenda

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the SelectUSA 2013 Investment Summit in Washington October 31, 2013. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Republicans are looking to bar the Obama administration from using any of the funds appropriated for national defense to implement global warming policies.

West Virginia Republican Rep. David McKinley will offer up an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Wednesday afternoon that would prevent the White House from sending funds to “the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866.”

“President Obama’s climate agenda reaches all corner of the government, including the military,” McKinley spokesman Jim Forbes told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Rather than blindly accepting drastic climate change policies, we ought to be debating their effectiveness and their impact.”

McKinley has been a vocal opponent of President Obama’s climate agenda, in particular Environmental Protection Agency regulations that target coal-fired power plants and mines — an economic mainstay of West Virginia.

The amendment was supported by conservative groups who argued that it would help stymie the Obama administration from carrying out their climate agenda.

“Freedom Action strongly supports Representative David McKinley’s amendment to prevent federal taxpayer dollars being used by the Obama Administration to promote official global warming propaganda,” Myron Ebell, director of Freedom Action, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “We hope this is only one of a long list of amendments that will block funding to implement such things as the EPA’s energy-rationing regulations, the Department of the Interior’s land-grab policies, and the Department of Energy’s loans-to-cronies programs.”

The NDAA is the primary piece of legislation the Defense Department relies on for its budgeting and financing of new defense programs. The NDAA for 2014 allowed the Pentagon to spend $607 billion, and was signed into law last year.

Defense appropriations for fiscal year 2015 is currently being flushed out by the House. According to Defense One, as many as 250 amendments have been filed for the NDAA, which lawmakers have begun debating this week.

McKinley’s amendment comes as President Obama has gotten more aggressive in his push to wean the U.S. off of coal power and push more green energy sources, like solar and wind. It has even been reported that Obama himself will announce the finalization of EPA rules that would effectively ban coal-fired power plants.

Global warming is also becoming a major part of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, especially since John Kerry began his tenure as secretary of state. In a graduation speech at Boston College, Kerry told the graduates that fighting global warming was a win-win because even if the earth did not continue to warm as predicted, the country will have created a vibrant new green economy.

“The solution is actually staring us in the face,” Kerry said. “It is energy policy. Make the right energy policy choices and America can lead a $6 trillion market with four billion users today and growing to nine billion users in the next 50 years.”

Kerry has been looking to lead the way on an international climate agreement that would bind all countries to lowering their carbon dioxide emissions. United Nations diplomats are set to meet in Paris next year to hash out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol which expired at the of 2012.

“If we make the necessary efforts to address this challenge — and supposing I’m wrong or scientists are wrong, 97% of them all wrong — supposing they are, what’s the worst that can happen?” Kerry said. “We put millions of people to work transitioning our energy, creating new and renewable and alternative; we make life healthier because we have less particulates in the air and cleaner air and more health; we give ourselves greater security through greater energy independence — that’s the downside.”

Virtually all past negotiations have failed to lead to a binding agreement to cut carbon dioxide emissions as rich and poor countries cannot agree over how to split up such emissions reductions and how much money should be transferred to poor nations.

“Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry said, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ if we follow these policies,” Forbes said. “What about the millions of jobs lost, more expensive electric bills, and fewer people emerging from poverty? This amendment will help prevent the military from following this extreme path.”

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