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AFP: No US overseas aid for climate change: Senators
Thursday December 2, 2010
Posted by Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov
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AFP
No US overseas aid for climate change: Senators
December 02, 2010
Administration Must Stop Wasting U.S. Taxpayer Dollars on International Climate Change Bailouts
WASHINGTON - The United States must freeze climate-change aid payments to developing countries to help them implement a global plan agreed in Denmark's capital last year, four US lawmakers said Thursday.
Republican Senators John Barrasso, James Inhofe, David Vitter, and George Voinovich told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington cannot to afford spend the money at a time of swelling deficits and a bloated national debt.
"We remain opposed to the US commitment to full implementation of the Copenhagen Accord, which will transfer billions of US taxpayer dollars to developing nations in the name of climate change," they said in a letter.
"We do not believe that billions of US taxpayer dollars should be transferred to developing countries through unaccountable multilateral or bilateral channels for adaptation, deforestation and other international climate finance programs," they told the top US diplomat.
The lawmakers said total US climate-related government spending in 2010 reached 1.3 billion dollars, and President Barack Obama has requested 1.9 billion for 2011 -- out of 3.6 trillion dollars in annual government spending.
"We request that the administration freeze further spending requests to implement international climate change finance programs. This would include making no additional international commitments to fund such programs," they said.
Republicans routed Obama's Democratic allies in November 2 elections, retaking the House of Representatives and slicing deep into the Democratic majority in the Senate, giving them a firmer grip on the reins in Washington.
House Republicans announced late Wednesday that they were dismantling the committee, created by Democrats, focused on battling climate change, calling it a waste of money.
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