Coalition of States and Cities Join “United States Climate Alliance”
The alliance “signals world” of its aims “to outmaneuver this White House”
On Thursday, President Trump announced the great news that he is withdrawing the U. S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, and the response across the internet was predictable. On Friday, dozens of states and cities announced that they had established a “United States Climate Alliance” to meet the U. S.’s commitment without Washington.
Thus far, the California-led effort seems focused on lowering carbon emissions and not on the government’s financial commitments.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
President Trump may be quitting the Paris accord on climate change — but forcing the rest of the nation to go along with him is proving more of a challenge.
Led by California, dozens of states and cities across the country responded Friday to Trump’s attack on the worldwide agreement by vowing to fulfill the U.S. commitment without Washington — a goal that is not out of reach.
The defiance is a signal to the world that the political forces behind America’s climate fight aim to outmaneuver this White House and to resume the nation’s leadership role when Trump changes jobs or changes his mind.
The pushback also reflects how far most of the country — including many Republican parts — already have moved in transitioning to cleaner energy, even as Trump works to slow that momentum.
“The American government may have pulled out of the agreement, but the American people remain committed to it — and we will meet our targets,” former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a special envoy for cities and climate change to the United Nations, said Friday after meeting in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
Considering that part of President Trump’s winning presidential campaign was focused on withdrawing the U. S. from this accord, Bloomberg’s statement may be a bit of a stretch. That said, quite a number of states and cities have pledged to reduce their own carbon emissions.
Watch:
The governors of California, New York and Washington State created the United States Climate Alliance to convene states upholding the Paris Agreement and those “taking aggressive action on climate change,” they said in a statement.
. . . . The alliance plans to promote the sharing of information, environmental best practices and also “implement new programs to reduce carbon emissions from all sectors of the economy.”
Governors who have proclaimed their continued support for the accord include:
— Charlie Baker, Massachusetts
— Jerry Brown, California
— Kate Brown, Oregon
— Andrew Cuomo, New York
— John Hickenlooper, Colorado
— David Y. Ige, Hawaii
— Jay Inslee, Washington
— Dannel P. Malloy, Connecticut
— Terry McAuliffe, Virginia
— Gina M. Raimondo, Rhode IslandA group of 61 mayors said they “will adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement.”
The group includes:
— Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Boston
— Bill de Blasio, New York City
— Rahm Emanuel, Chicago
— Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles
— Jim Kenney, Philadelphia
— Mitch Landrieu, New Orleans
— Ed Murray, Seattle
Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, has also joined the United States Climate Alliance.
The Paris Climate Agreement was not solely a commitment to lower emissions; it also entails “investment” in green energy, wealth redistribution on a global scale, widespread propaganda efforts on climate change, and “sustainable development.” It will be interesting to see how these states and cities approach the rest of the accord, including its astronomical cost to taxpayers.
States and cities have the right to reduce carbon emissions if they wish to do so, and unless these states cross a line (like attempting to enter a treaty or compact with Paris Agreement signatories independent of the federal government), they are welcome to reduce their carbon emissions.
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Let’s hope these voluntary participants also set up a special fund for their U.N. “climate change” donations, so their taxpayers can see how their “climate change” money is being spent.
Each month when they receive their electric or gas bills, the consumers in those states can see that $x amount of their “climate change” donation went into the Cayman Island/Swiss bank accounts of which corrupt U.N. officials, and that $x amount of their “climate change” donation went to pay off witnesses in some third-world countries for not testifying about seeing U.N. officials raping kids there, and $x amount went to . . . .
It will be worded to hide where that tax is going. “Cute Puppy Defense Fund” or something.
People will blame the Power Companies.
Dem politicians will blame the Power Companies.
Dems attempt takeover of Power Companies.
Ir’s all about “Power”
I wonder which retarded asshole downvoted all these comments
Sounds like Logan Act violations to me.
In what way? Even if the act is constitutional, which is doubtful, with which foreign government do you allege they have corresponded or had intercourse, with intent to influence its measures or conduct in relation to which dispute or controversy of the United States, or to defeat which measure of the United States?
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Cooling
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change
They want to believe.
Drop Catastrophic
Drop Anthropogenic
Climate Change… The normal state of the Earth system.
Most of the arguments I hear from science illiterate politicians are based on an assumption that climate is a closed static system. They are the ones in denial that climate change is the normal state of the climate system.
They only adjust their tune when called out on false statements. They’ll complain about sea level rise and when you point out that it’s been rising for 20,000 years…that’s when they switch to “It’s a rise in sea level RATE”.
It’s worse than that. The central mechanism of the radiative “greenhouse” effect was characterized in isolation, then through extrapolation was assumed/asserted to behave equally in the wild. Then they used inference (i.e. created knowledge) from circumstantial (e.g. outside the limited scientific domain) evidence to establish a baseline, which may be generally representative or merely an isolated sample from evolutionary processes (i.e. chaotic). Finally, they constructed models (i.e. hypotheses) to prove a hypothesis, catastrophic anthropogenic global cooling, catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, or, today, just climate change, depending on the direction the wind is blowing. The last is essentially circular reasoning, which has demonstrated no skill to hindcast and cannot predict future states beyond a limited frame of reference (i.e. scientific domain).
Oh, and with the known incalculable uncertainty, they proceeded to frame what should rightly be a risk management issue as a utility policy issue instead.
re: and cannot predict future states
Rather, it can forecast, but not predict future states, which effectively constrains its skill to short time and space intervals or, with the good fortune of a semi-stable system, perhaps longer but with large margins of error in reduced frames.
There’s nothing really to stop them from voluntarily imposing these restrictions if they want to on their own territories. However, it’s up to their denizens to determine whether they want those imposing to remain in office.
Apparently you still believe elections matter. Since 2012, all I have seen are ballots populated by nothing else but communists. And two weeks ago, the state assembly took it upon themselves to legalize communism (remember, card-carrying communist Kamala Harris plans on running for president and she is legally ineligible to hold office in CA).
Thanks to Trump, we escaped the final blow (either Hillary or Jeb would have sufficed) to kissing off our national sovereignty. The constitution is no longer an iron clad protection of our freedoms. We pissed off the Masters of the Universe last year by what they believe was an inconvenient delay of their big plans. We need to make that delay permanent. The 2016 election victory will mean nothing if we don’t win on the issues THIS YEAR!
When are people like you going to get it? After so many years of “it’s never ever the right time to do the right thing”, we have run out of time. We have to win this battle NOW! Trump can’t do it alone. And he certainly can’t do it if we allow the Republicans to lead the way in undermining last year’s elections. They still have their wagons circled to protect the Democrats everywhere.
“communism” is an odd way to spell Democrats?
WTH are you talking about? The supreme law of the land already legalizes communism. No legislature has the power to illegalize it, and anyone who would vote for such a measure violates his oath.
Again WTH are you talking about? I’m calling you out on that one. Submit proof or stand exposed as a damned liar.
It’s called The United States Climate Alliance.
If you tried deliberately you could not be more off kilter and annoying.
It’s an alliance between themselves, not with any foreign government, and it doesn’t “encroach upon or impair the supremacy of the United States, or interfere with their rightful management of particular subjects placed under their entire control”, so it’s none of Congress’s business.
Sorry, but you are just plain nasty.
Congressional approval, either implicit or explicit is needed for States to undertake an interstate compact. For example the Beamer Resolution authorizes the Drivers License Compact. The Drivers license compact, since it implicates the dormant Commerce Clause required Congressional approval.
The Courts have carved out a rather mild exception. Trivial transactions between States, that are of no concern to the United States, and do not serve to increase the power of States at the expense of the United States may be exempt. An example might be one State buying a building in another State. But that is not the case here.
The United States Climate Alliance directly challenges the authority of the Federal Government. States are invoking the name of the United States. The “Alliance” implicates foreign policy and is contrary to the policy of the United States Government as articulated by its President of the United States. It violates the Compact Clause in my opinion and in the opinion of Sidebar.
I think you need to do some soul searching about your behavior. It is a shame that I had to waste the time to lay out for you something that was well known to other readers.
The exception is not mild, it leaves almost no interstate compact that does need congressional approval, since states have no power to encroach on Congress’s authority even if they do so on their own.
This alliance does not touch federal power in any way. These states have agreed to use their own powers to impose on their own citizens the restrictions that the federal government will now no longer impose on them. There is no question that each individual state has the right to do so — otherwise they couldn’t do this at all, and you wouldn’t have to invoke the compact clause. In fact the states’ power to do this on their own is much clearer than the fedgov’s power to impose it on them. But whatever they can each do individually they can also agree with each other to do, without it being Congress’s business.
They do not claim to act in the name of the Union, but only in their own names and those of their citizens. They are not negotiating with any foreign power; they are merely implementing that which Mr 0bama already negotiated, back when he had the right to do so. Congress’s power is in no way diminished, and that of the compacting states is in no way increased. Therefore it is none of Congress’s business, and falls squarely in the “exception” of VA v TN.
The American government may have pulled out of the agreement, but the American people remain committed to it…
Just so everyone knows: I may be the only one, but they aren’t speaking for me.
They are speaking for the dinosaurs. The silliest argument I have ever heard: “Climate change killed off the dinosaurs. We must stop it before we kill the whole planet.”
It’s a religious position for many of them. They’re trying to save Gaia. They stole the story of their prophet Captain Planet.
This has more to do with Trump bashing and virtue signaling than actual climate alarmism.
Yep, exactly right. In fact, it’s a no-brainer when we remember that obastard only signed onto the damn thing seven or eight months ago to dump another leftwing turd on America and throw a bone to the environazis as he left office.
There is a little hiccup here. It is called the United States Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 10
I hope Justice Warrior District Court Judges won’t let a little banality like that interfere with their decision making.
I think most of this is Democratic Party Grandstanding. I doubt these people will want to spend their own taxpayer money on any of this.
Remember when California spent billions on embryonic stem cell research ( and got nothing for it but interest payments on those bonds)? Never underestimate what foolishness progressives will spend tax payers ( but not their own) money on.
No, Democrats won’t let a small pesky thing like the Constitution get in the way of their quest for Globalism.
How is that a hiccup? What treaty, alliance, or confederation does your fevered imagination tell you they’re entering?
It’s called The United States Climate Alliance.
If you tried deliberately you could not be more off kilter and annoying.
That discourse is rude nasty and uncalled for. You are making civil discussion difficult on this blog. Perpetually perusing lines and adding snide remarks.
.
It’s a little late to be worrying about civil discourse now; I don’t recall you ever saying a word about the constant abuse Rags and I get here. And I’m not sure civil discourse is even possible with lunatics who accuse people with no evidence of being “card-carrying communists”, or who think communism can be made illegal.
For goodness sake Milhouse, how much does Sidebar have to spell it out for you. The Article I Section 10 continues
You are just plain rude.
No, you are just plain ignorant. States have every right to make private arrangements between themselves, and only need Congress’s permission if the subject of the agreement is somehow Congress’s business.
The exemption is rather narrow. Trivial transactions that don’t diminish the power of the United States may be exempted. That is not the case here.
States invoking the name of the United States is the business of Congress. States intending to undermine the foreign policy of the United States is the business of Congress.
Your entitled to your opinion, but many lawyers skilled in that area of a law will disagree with you.
Nonsense. VA v TN does not only cover trivial transactions, it covers any transaction that does not increase state power at the expense of that of the United States. Since states can’t do that anyway, whether on their own or by compact, the clause is almost meaningless.
“Invoking the name of the United States” is meaningless twaddle. Every enterprise within the US (or even outside it) is free to use that name. If I can start a “U.S. Bank”, a “United States Shoe Corporation”, a “United States Council for Automotive Research”, a “United States Alliance for Technological Literacy”, or a “United States Alliance For Eastern Affairs” then states can start one for whatever interests them.
States intending to undermine the foreign policy of the United States is the business of Congress.
That’s a very strange position to take, since Congress itself has no role in setting the foreign policy of the United States, which is entirely in the president’s hands. But in any case this alliance does no such thing; it is not and has never been the foreign policy of the United States that states may not regulate activity within their borders in order to improve the global environment.
Before, it was mainly Obama, as front man, publicly embarrassing the United States.
Now it’s all these virtue-signalling crapweasels publicly embarrassing the United States.
I don’t believe it’s going to inure to their long term benefit.
Please note that this movement is mostly led by corrupt leaders of cities and states that have already sold out to the Masters of the Universe over the wishes of their voters. No one in CA or other states voted for this. So no matter where you live, this is not a red state vs blue state schadenfreude moment. This is a “call to arms” moment for voters to unite and fight the Masters of the Universe, the latest battlefront in the war to keep our constitutional republic. Remember Ben Franklin’s “if we can keep it” warning. That moment is now.
Keep that in mind now that people are again deciding that whatever benefit there may be for living where they are/were, it isn’t/wasn’t worth it. And so they are again voting with their feet en masse. I will soon be one of them.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-02/mapping-us-zip-codes-where-rent-too-damn-high#comment-9648965
ALL voters need to be united on this. We might have avoided all of this had non-Californians heeded the calls of those of us fighting it in states like CA for support. We could have killed it here. We lost. But now the battle is moving to wherever you live and it isn’t we Californians who are bringing it to you. It is already there among you. We fought against it over and over again while being mocked by the rest of the country while our ballot box victories were routinely overturned by the courts. You NEED us to fight this so don’t fight us. You need our votes and we have always voted for freedom, low taxes, DOMA, border security and the rest.
Up until Team Bush gutted the CA State Republican Committee in the Gray Davis recall election, you couldn’t get elected statewide unless you embraced those issues. Thanks to Team Bush, the 2012 election marked the first time since 1932 than there were no Republicans holding statewide offices in CA. And there is no hope for that to ever change.
It’s time for CITIZENS to unite to fight against the corrupt Masters of the Universe. ALL of us. That is what last year’s election was about. That is why Trump won. But fight the TRUE enemy.
There is no middle ground. This is not the time to be quibbling over the finer points of Dem vs Rep, or lib vs con nor the comparative merits of constitutionalism vs libertarianism vs neoconservatism etc… We the need to win the existential battle for our freedom. We need to make sure that Trump secures national sovereignty over globalism. This is our last chance. There will be no “next time”.
Nicely stated.
Amazing how quickly these groups form, isn’t it?
Yes! They are quick at protest signs too. Almost looks like a professional print job. Nahhh couldn’t be.
Yes. I’m a big fan of these organic, heartfelt grass roots movements.
/sarc
Text of the Paris Agreement
https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf
Some evidence that the “Masters of the Universe” conspiracy theory has a factual basis.
Washington Post’s Fake Conservative Blogger Hated The Paris Deal…Until Trump Agreed With Her
Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin used to hate the Paris climate deal. Then Trump agreed with her. Now she loves it. What changed?
JUNE 1, 2017 By Sean Davis
http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/01/washington-posts-fake-conservative-blogger-hated-the-paris-deal-until-trump-opposed-it/
It is not normal for people to reverse their opinions on the issues of the day just because somebody they dislike happens to agree with them. The normal response is something like, “Oh well, a stopped clock…..” And yet, we have been seeing wave after wave of distributed media blasts at the President of the United States, that include 180 degree reversals of opinions on any and all issues.
Our media is not giving us their own opinions: they are writing to the demands of somebody, and that somebody is every bit as stupid as whoever controlled that blundering mess of a Clinton election campaign.
Bezos is her boss. Case closed.
The Campaign Against Climate Change is as conceptually medieval as The Campaign Against Heliocentrism.
The Campaign’s very name poses a big problem, no?
Talk about unrealistic expectations.
Stories like this can be a little depressing. When they get to me a bit too much, I just spend some time here:
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/
and I’m good to go again.
Well I guess they are perfectly fine to lower their co2 emissions and the best way to do that is through the use of natural gas from fracking 🙂
I expect the list of cities/states engaging in this nonsense to largely overlap the list of the sanctuary cities/states. Maybe I ‘ll find some time to compare.
Why, do you ask? Because these are the cities who will be going bankrupt due to exiting (revenue-generating) population.
I would pull out of any fund investing materially in their bonds. (this is not investment advice for anyone else – disclaimer blah blah)
Nothing much going to actually happen. The whole point of Paris was to raid Uncle Sam’s piggy bank while making pious noises as distraction. Foreigners are disappointed that they won’t now get the big handout, so of course they’re grousing.
But there’s no sure way for states to jump in and get the handout instead. And they’ll demand it, for sure—the low-CO2 folly will cost them a bundle, and they’ll squawk for the Feds to pay them for it. The traitorous R’s in Congress will be all for it, but I don’t think will be able to pass such a payoff by themselves. So the whole thing becomes, from the state’s standpoint, pointless.
Federal audit of any/all Federal funds/grants to ENSURE no Federal money is used to pursue the Paris crap. If Congress deems to give unencumbered Federal money to a city or State, then we need to put pressure on Congress. I hope there is a massive crack-down on grants for stupid Green projects. I can hope… but it’s pervasive and a lot of folks are getting rich fleecing the public.
I don’t often type “Pah!” but in this case I’ll make an exception.
The Paris accord wasn’t just about cronies world wide trousering loot taken from you and me by Uncle Sam (though that was the important bit, for said cronies).
There was also a massive regulatory burden, designed to fall disproportionately on the USA. Thanks to Pres. Trump, we, as a nation, have avoided that.
If the governments of these few states choose to impose that burden on their own citizens, that is their right. If Gov. Brown feels that businesses aren’t fleeing CA fast enough, let him continue down that path.
We in Texas, along with our brothers and sisters in the other sane states will welcome his entrepreneurial refugees with open arms.
In 2013 the Massachusetts legislature tried to impose a 3 cent tax per gallon of gas, scheduled to increase every year thereafter at a rate tied to the Consumer Price Index. But in Massachusetts, over 50% of registered voters are “independents”, while only 33% are Democrats. The proposal was withdrawn when the “Tank the Gas Tax” ballot initiative won by 4 percentage points (52-48). So I’m confident that if the Mass. governor or State House tries to use the Paris agreement as an excuse to increase our taxes, we’ll fight back and win again.
It may not be the nail in the coffin, but it does force them to be realistic in order to avoid democratic dissatisfaction. Perhaps even to treat a potential issue as a risk management problem with all the caveats that entails.
It’s the science that suffers, but the people may avoid catastrophic anthropogenic climate change in the political, redistributive (e.g. taxation, inflated costs), and regulatory systems.
If cities want to recycle more and cut vehicle emissions in their local government fleets, good on them. We should take care of the environment and not trash it. However, is a mayor able to give his residents’ tax money to foreign nations? Pretty sure I would cry foul on that one loudly.
Knock yourselves out. The businesses you run off are welcome in Florida.