UN Green Climate Fund
<div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">SEE MAIN UN GCF</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">SEE CLIMATE DEBT</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">SEE PARIS</font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></span></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">GUK</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">https://yyytheguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/project-2025-dismantle-us-climate-policy-next-republican-president</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><b>‘Project 2025’: plan to dismantle US climate policy for next Republican president</b></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Rightwing groups penned a conservative wish list of proposals for the next conservative Dharna Noor</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Thu 27 Jul 2023 </span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">An alliance of rightwing groups has crafted an extensive presidential proposal to bolster the planet-heating oil and gas industry and hamstring the energy transition, it has emerged.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Against a backdrop of record-breaking heat and floods this year, the $22m endeavor, Project 2025, was convened by the notorious rightwing, climate-denying thinktank the Heritage Foundation, which has ties to fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">[A burned-out car against a background of charred trees and hills</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Deadly global heatwaves undeniably result of climate crisis, scientists show</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Read more]</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Called the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, it is meant to guide the first 180 days of presidency for an incoming Republican president. Climate experts and advocates criticized planning that would dismantle US climate policy.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><b>The nearly 1,000-page transition guide was written by more than 350 rightwingers and is full of sweeping recommendations to deconstruct all sectors of the federal government– – including environmental policy.</b></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Heritage is convening the conservative movement behind the policies to ensure that the next president has the right policy and personnel necessary to dismantle the administrative state and restore self-governance to the American people,” the foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, </span>said in an April statement.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">The guide’s chapter on the <b>US Department of Energy proposes eliminating three agency offices that are crucial for the energy transition,</b> and also <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">calls to slash funding to the agency’s grid deployment office in an effort to stymie renewable energy deployment, E&E News </span>reported this week.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The plan, which would hugely<b> expand gas infrastructure, </b>was authored by</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> Bernard McNamee,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a former official at the agency. McNamee was also a Trump appointee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He previously led the far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation, which fights environmental regulation, and served as a <b>senior adviser to the Republican senator Ted Cruz.</b></span></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another chapter focuses on gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and moving it away from its focus on the climate crisis. It proposes cutting the agency’s environmental justice and public engagement functions, while shrinking it as a whole by terminating new hires in “low-value programs”, E&E News reported. The proposal was written</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Mandy Gunasekara,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> who was the former chief of staff at the EPA under Trump.</span></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><b>The guide also features a chapter on the Department of the Interior written by<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> William Perry Pendley,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> </span>who controversially led the Bureau of Land Management under President Trump and worked to eliminate drilling regulations.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">[Republicans in Congress continue to show they will stop at nothing to undermine environmental protections</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">David Shadburn of the League of Conservation Voters]</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Before his time in the Trump administration, Pendley headed the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm where he advocated for selling off public lands. He also authored a book, Sagebrush Rebel, praising Reagan’s anti-regulatory policies.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">“He did a bunch of terrible things,” said<b> Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity</b>, about Pendley’s time at the Department of the Interior. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“He worked to dismantle [the Bureau of Land Management] while he was in it.”</span></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Heritage Foundation has enjoyed a longstanding influence in GOP politics, even helping Ronald Reagan win the presidency, authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway detail in their 2023 book, The Big Myth. Many of Reagan’s policy proposals were cribbed from the pages of the thinktank’s first Mandate for Leadership, published in 1980, which asserted that the US was in the middle of a “crisis of overregulation”.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">“It doesn’t trouble me that any individual or institution would develop advisory plans for politicians. What troubles me is the Heritage Foundation’s long history … of working to undermine environmental protection at the expense of health and wellbeing of the American people, at the expense of life on Earth,” said Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">[Protesters in October 2021 demanding that the Biden administration to do more to curb climate change and ban fossil fuels.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, House GOP members are also continuing to attack federal climate funding in their spending bill proposals, putting governmental functions at risk.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><b>Earlier this month, the Clean Budget Coalition– – composed of more than 250 advocacy groups – warned that Republican representatives were slipping restrictions on climate spending into the government’s annual spending bill</b>s, bills that must be passed before current funding expires on 30 September to avoid a government shutdown. This week, the coalition found that House Republicans had added additional “p<b>oison pills” to spending bills, including ones that target environmental funding.</b></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The spending bills are currently in the House appropriations committee, which is chaired by the<b> Texas Republican Kay Granger, who is a top recipient of campaign funding from the oil and gas industry,</b></span> the Lever reported this week. They will go to a full vote in the House, and then the finalized proposals will move into negotiations with the Senate. If Biden vetoes them, a government shutdown could be on the way.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">“Republicans in Congress continue to show they will stop at nothing to undermine environmental protections and attack anything that would help addressing the climate crisis,” said David Shadburn, a senior government affairs advocate at the League of Conservation Voters.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of the provisions would hamstring the EPA’s powers, blocking the agency from enforcing new pollution limits on power plants and tailpipe emissions or from implementing controls on mercury and other toxic air pollution, and effectively shuttering a critical program for deploying carbon-free energy.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">“House appropriations Republicans are abusing the appropriations process to impose a cycle of environmental injustice,” said Deanna Noël, climate campaigns director for the consumer advocacy nonprofit <b>Public Citizen.</b></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other “poison pills” would prohibit listing the dunes sagebrush lizard under the <b>Endangered Species Act,</b> remove protections for the greater Yellowstone ecosystem’s population of grizzly bears, and bar the Department of the Interior from creating a working group to help restore bison populations</span>. Still others would<b> require the energy secretary to sell 1m barrels of refined petroleum from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve</b>, and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">block the implementation of a rule forcing federal defense contractors to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and create emission reductions plans.</span></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><b>These disgraceful poison pill riders are nothing short of corporate giveaways to the corrupt fossil fuel industry</b></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Deanna Noël of Public Citizen</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Every GOP representative can submit proposals to the House appropriations committee, and since no member is required to sign off on specific proposals, it is not clear who exactly is responsible for each “poison pill</span>”. But as the Lever reported, many Republican representatives who have effectively championed the provisions are recipients of funding from polluting industries.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For instance, a proposal to halt climate-related fisheries research funding was written by a subcommittee led by Representative </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hal Rogers of Kentucky,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> whose top campaign contributors include mining and fossil fuel interests. Another proposal would bar funding for the</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">UN’s Green Climate Fund</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> it was buried in a bill being overseen by major energy funding recipient Representative Mario </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Díaz-Balart </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">of Florida, the Lever reported.</span></span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">“These disgraceful poison pill riders are nothing short of corporate giveaways to the corrupt fossil fuel industry,” said Noël.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;" /><p style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 30px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;">The proposals come as waters off the Florida coast reach levels of heat more commonly found in hot tubs, and as much of the nation continues to swelter under triple-digit temperatures. </span></font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">guk ref 2</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ENVIRONMENT</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> JUL 25, 2023</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Amid Heat Wave, GOP Adds Climate Denial To Spending Bills</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">House Republicans are helping their fossil fuel donors with legislative fine print that would block climate action.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Matthew Cunningham-Cook</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Sirota</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger, R-Texas, speaks with House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As scientists warn of a mass extinction and ecological tipping points, congressional Republicans are helping their fossil fuel industry donors by quietly inserting provisions into annual spending bills designed to bar the American government from combating and researching climate change, according to the fine print of legislative text reviewed by The Lever. Some provisions also require the leasing of federal lands and waters for oil and gas development, while potentially limiting such leases for wind power.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In all, Republican leaders have added at least a dozen such environmental provisions to four annual government spending bills as property damage and death tolls mount from historic heat waves, floods, and wildfires.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By adding the provisions to annual must-pass spending bills, Republicans who control the U.S. House are attempting to force Senate Democrats to choose between either accepting them or blocking the spending bills and shutting down the government.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For his part, President Joe Biden has declined to issue a climate emergency declaration, which could provide his administration new authority to circumvent at least some of the Republicans’ tactics.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The GOP bills are currently in the House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Texas Republican<b> Rep. Kay Granger, who has received nearly $1.2 million from the oil and gas sector </b>over the course of her career in Congress. Her second-largest career campaign contributor is the oil and gas industry, and she brags on her government website that she has fought to prevent spending to combat climate change.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Granger’s congressional district has been grappling with a heat-related public health crisis.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Blocking Fisheries Research As Oceans Boil</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the most aggressive Republican climate provisions moving through Granger’s panel is buried in legislation funding the government’s science agencies. As waters around South Florida set records for the hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded, a line in the bill would bar the Biden administration from spending any money on “climate change fisheries research.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The move comes just weeks after tens of thousands of dead fish washed ashore in Texas due to high temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, following other recent mass die-offs in Australia. The Center for Biological Diversity notes that intensifying ocean acidification triggered by climate change “could disrupt the entire marine ecosystem.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The subcommittee that originally authored the fisheries legislation is headed by Republican Rep. <b>Hal Rogers, </b>who hails from the coal-rich state of Kentucky and whose top career campaign contributors include donors from the mining and fossil fuel industries.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rogers has raised more than half a million dollars from the mining industry over the course of his career, and $390,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to data from OpenSecrets. In the 2019-2020 cycle, Rogers’s campaign paid $66,000 to his wife Cynthia.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The science funding bill also zeroes out funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program at the National Science Foundation,</span> which coordinates research across the federal government “to understand the human-caused and natural processes that influence our planet,” and would additionally block the government from using any funds to carry out climate-related Biden executive orders.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The bill targets a Biden order issued in January 2021 that directed the federal government to use the procurement process, in which it acquires goods and services from the private sector, to mitigate carbon emissions as part of a broader federal effort to address climate change.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The order also specifically directed the Commerce Department to “to collect input from fishermen, regional ocean councils, fishery management councils, scientists, and other stakeholders on how to make fisheries and protected resources more resilient to climate change, including changes in management and conservation measures, and improvements in science, monitoring, and cooperative research.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The GOP legislation also moves to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> defund a separate Biden order from April 2022 that sought to enhance the federal government’s forest stewardship and promote “climate-smart stewardship of mature and old-growth forests.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Requiring Offshore Oil/Gas Leases, Slowing Wind Power Leases</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Republican spending bills contain several more efforts to undermine the Biden administration’s ability to meaningfully respond to the worsening global climate crisis.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That includes the bill authorizing funding for the Department of Interior, which oversees public lands. The legislation contains a provision mandating, “None of the funds made available by this act may be used to consider or incorporate the<b> social cost of carbon.”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The bill also permanently rescinds $1.3 billion in grant funding under the Clean Air Act to mitigate the effects of air pollution, as more than a quarter of all Americans now live in areas with dangerous levels of such pollution.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The Interior spending bill also includes provisions requiring “the Secretary of the Interior to conduct quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales” as well as fossil fuel lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico,</b> according to the bill report</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the same time, the legislation bars the government from issuing leases for offshore wind development in Florida until the <b>completion of a study about windmills’ impact “on military readiness</b> and training, <b>marine environment</b> and ecology, tourism, and other uses of the Outer Continental Shelf.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The latter rider is in response to Florida Republican lawmakers’ complaint that “people travel from around the world to see our pristine beaches — not windmills.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Department of Interior funding bill has been spearheaded by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Id.), who has received nearly $900,000 in campaign contributions from electric utility interests during the course of his career, as well as roughly $440,000 from oil and gas industry donors. In the last few years, climate-intensified wildfires have caused billions of damage in Simpson’s state.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Defunding Global Climate Investments</b></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then there’s the bill funding the Department of State and foreign aid. That legislation would bar funding for the</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Green Climate Fund</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">— one of the entities charged with fulfilling the mandates of the Paris Climate Accords — which received a $1 billion deposit from the Biden administration in April.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Likewise, the bill prohibits the federal government from financing the <b>Clean Technology Fund,</b> which helps developing countries transition away from dirtier energy sources, </span>and also explicitly rejects the concept of climate reparations, decreeing that none of the funds may be used “to pay compensation to any country, organization, or individual for loss and damages attributed to climate change.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The bill also prevents the funding of an August 2021 Department of Treasuring guidance calling on multilateral development banks like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to limit financing of fossil fuel projects.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The State Department and foreign aid bill is being overseen by Rep. Mario <b>Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who has received nearly $430,000 in campaign contributions from the energy and natural resources industry</b> during his time in office. His district includes locales that a recent climate study said are among the most likely to soon be underwater due to rising ocean levels.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The House bill for funding the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), meanwhile, seeks to bar the agency’s proposed climate disclosure rule, which would mandate that publicly traded companies provide a full disclosure of their climate risks.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The subcommittee overseeing the SEC bill is headed by Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) who has received more than $175,000 from oil and gas interests during his career. Womack’s home state has recently experienced deadly tornadoes and flash flood warnings.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Finally, the GOP bill funding the Department of Labor will maintain a ban from 1976 that has been reapproved annually under both Republican and Democratic control of Congress that <b>bars the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from investigating deaths at farms that employ less than 10 people, including deaths related to extreme heat</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">(Due to mass automation in the agriculture industry, this exemption includes many farms that are quite large and profitable.</span>)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While OSHA has yet to issue a standard governing excessive heat in the workplace, the agency is tasked with investigating deaths or injuries in cases of extreme heat.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> At least 436 people died from extreme heat on the job from 2011 to 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The OSHA bill originated in a subcommittee headed by<b> Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL)</b>, whose top career campaign contributors include donors from agribusiness and the fossil fuel industry. Nearly a quarter of the Alabama labor force is outdoor workers, and the state recently experienced temperatures above 100 degrees</span>.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The bills will now move to the full House for approval, and then the final bills must be negotiated with the Senate and passed again through both houses of Congress. If the provisions are kept in the text and <b>Biden vetoes the spending bills, parts of the federal government could shut down.</b></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div>