Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee were unable Tuesday to remove language from the fiscal 2017 State Department funding bill that would bar U.S. contributions to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund. Two amendments were offered during the full committee markup of the bill that would have approved funding for the U.N. initiative.
Under the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act or prior Acts making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs may be made available as a contribution, grant, or any other payment to the Green Climate Fund.”
“Prohibiting the U.S. from making a contribution is shortsighted because we cannot solve climate change alone, it requires multilateral partnerships. The Green Climate Fund is the only multilateral institution that supports clean resilient development around the world,” committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who proposed one of the amendments, said during the markup.
The United States has committed to contributing a total of $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, and in March wrote a $500 million check to the program that caused an uproar in the Republican-controlled Congress. That was the nation’s first payment to the fund, which is intended to support climate change programs in developing nations. In the fiscal 2017 budget plan, the Obama administration requested $750 million for the Green Climate Fund. The March payment was the U.S.’s first to the funding mechanism.
Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), chairwoman of the Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs subcommittee, defended the inclusion of the language. “We received more member requests to prohibit funds for this account than any other in our bill,” she said.
The Lowey amendment would have also struck a number of other provisions Democrats were unhappy with in one fell swoop. The Lowey amendment failed by a vote of 20-29.
A stand-alone amendment offered by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) took aim specifically at the GCF language. “If one sticks their head in the sand deep enough it may be possible to avoid the effects of climate change, at least until the ocean levels raise and you’re underwater,” she said in presenting her amendment.
Speaking against the McCollum amendment, Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) said the administration had no right to make a commitment to the fund in the first place. “This president continues to make promises he can’t keep, or if he does keep them he does them in a way that Congress has not authorized,” he said.
A similar provision to the one in the House bill was included in the Senate’s Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs subcommittee draft but was removed from the final version of the bill with a bipartisan amendment approved during the Appropriations Committee markup. The Senate version ended up reserving $500 million for the Green Climate Fund.
The McCollum amendment failed by a vote of 19-29.
