The House just passed its first climate bill in a decade

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced HR 9 in March, a bill that would keep the United States in the Paris climate agreement. House Speaker’s Office/Facebook








https://www.vox.com/2019/3/27/18283831/pelosi-climate-change-green-new-deal




Nancy Pelosi is trying to force Trump to return the US to the Paris climate agreement.

By Umair Irfan Updated May 2, 2019, 1:41pm EDT

Update, May 2: The House passed the Climate Action Now Act in a 231-190 vote on Thursday, making it the first climate bill to pass the House in a decade. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the bill would “go nowhere,” so it’s unlikely to come up for a vote in the Senate. Read more about the bill in the story below, first published on March 27 when it was introduced.

After a raucous day of Senate Republicans trolling Democrats on a Green New Deal vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday morning stepped up with a clear message: Climate change is a pillar of House Democrats’ legislative agenda in the new Congress.
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“Our caucus has made [climate change] a caucus-wide priority,” Pelosi said. “This bill is only step one.”

While Republicans still hold the White House and the Senate and are unlikely to pass any climate legislation, House Democrats are signaling to their base that they are serious about action. And with HR 9, they’re also trying to tell the rest of the world that people in the United States still want to uphold their obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris accord.


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Pelosi framed rejoining the Paris agreement as a moral obligation; the bill, she said, is also “about jobs, good-paying, green jobs,” cleaner air and water, and improved public health.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), the chair of the newly formed House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and a co-sponsor of the bill, said that HR 9 would undergo markups in the relevant committees in the coming weeks and will be brought to the floor for a vote. ................................................