Rep. Brad Schneider Introduces Bill To Reverse Trump Climate Order

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Brad Schneider (D, IL-10) and 35 other Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced legislation Thursday to block President Donald Trump's recent executive order on environmental protections.

The House bill, H.R. 1812, has been dubbed the CLIMATE Act ("Congressional Leadership in Mitigating Administration Threats to the Earth"). It would block any federal funding from going to the implementation of this week's "Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth" executive action.

Under that March 28 executive order, the Environmental Protection Agency is instructed to begin pulling back from and rewriting the last administration's plans to replace coal-powered energy with renewables.

"My administration is putting an end to the war on coal," Trump said at the order's signing. "We're going to have clean coal — really clean coal."

Schneider and the other representatives who introduced the bill, Doris Matsui (D, CA-6), Paul Tonko (D, NY-20), and Charlie Crist (D, FL-13), described the President's order as dangerous and reckless.

“This executive order ignores both the science and the impacts of global climate change, and jeopardizes our children’s future by reorienting our policies backwards toward higher-emission sources of energy,” said Schneider.

“The United States must continue to play a leadership role in the international effort to confront climate change, or risk losing that role to other countries. We need to lead not just to protect our environment and national security, but to also ensure that the green energy jobs of tomorrow are created here at home.”

In addition to reevaluating the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, the March 28 executive order makes it more difficult for the U.S. to meet the international emissions targets set under the Paris Agreement, according to its opponents. Democrats described it as giving up America's leadership role in shaping global climate policy of the future.

The order also loosens limits on the amount of methane gas that can be released into the air, ends a moratorium on federal coal leasing and potentially lowers construction standards for new power plants.

» Watch Rep. Schneider speak in support of the CLIMATE Act: