A Vote for Green Climate Fund in Speaker Ryan's Omnibus Spending Bill Is a Vote for Paris Agreement

What better time than Christmas to spend other people’s money and give presents to the environmental activists? In addition to the other generous handouts renewable companies would receive in the omnibus spending bill, backroom negotiators are also pushing for President Barack Obama’s $3-billion pledge for the Green Climate Fund, a key component of the Paris climate change talks. Agreeing to allocate taxpayer dollars for the Green Climate Fund is effectively giving a congressional stamp of approval to the Paris Protocol. Congress should this reject this funding entirely.  According to Bloomberg, the trade-off for lifting the decades-old ban on crude oil exports would be authorizing $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund. The Green Climate Fund is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded wealth transfer from developed countries to developing ones. Lifting the ban on crude oil is good policy. Allowing U.S. energy exports would provide a boon to the American economy, creating jobs, expanding the economy, and strengthening relationships with global trading partners. Removing restrictions on energy exports would improve national security and geopolitical conditions around the world by reducing any one nation’s ability to manipulate energy supplies for political or economic influence.  But, as my colleague Rachel Bovard noted, lifting the ban on crude oil already has bipartisan support, and “extortion should not be the standard we set for implementing internationally strategic, broadly supported, job-creating policies.” In other words, this in an unfair trade-off: A bipartisan-backed policy is being traded for a liberal policy...more