Posted by David Lungren David_Lungren@epw.senate.gov

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GOP senators decry 'bailout' for developing countries

(12/02/2010)

Gabriel Nelson, E&E reporter

Link to Article

Top-ranking Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee have asked Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to freeze all future requests for climate-related spending, saying that it is inappropriate to transfer money to developing nations while the U.S. economy is struggling.

The letter -- signed by Sens. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, David Vitter of Louisiana, George Voinovich of Ohio and John Barrasso of Wyoming -- warns U.S. negotiators not to give away too much during the U.N. climate conference that is under way in Cancun, Mexico.

"We simply cannot afford any massive spending programs with such debt owed by America's future generations," it says.

Climate-related appropriations grew from $315 million in fiscal 2009 to $1.3 billion in fiscal 2010. The Obama administration requested $1.9 billion for fiscal 2011 so it could pay its share of an international fund for adaptation to climate change, which would total $100 billion through 2020.

The adaptation fund was part of the Copenhagen Accord, an agreement that emerged from last year's talks in Denmark. Negotiators were trying to pin down more of the details in Cancun, but the biggest development so far has been Japan's insistence that it won't work to extend the Kyoto Protocol when the agreement -- which provides the basis for the climate talks -- expires in 2012 (ClimateWire, Dec. 2).

Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate panel's oversight subcommittee, compared the agreements to the government-funded rescue of the financial system.

"It makes no sense for the United States to now spend billions of taxpayer dollars to fight climate change in other countries," Barrasso said in a statement. "Americans are concerned about jobs, the economy, the debt and spending. If the administration is serious about listening to the American people, they will cancel this international climate change bailout."

Click here to read the letter

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