Two of Indiana’s Congressional delegation were among the first to applaud President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
Republican Congressmen Jim Banks and Todd Rokita both issued statements praising the move:
“With cost estimates as high as $750 billion, the Paris agreement imposes an extremely expensive burden without moving the needle on greenhouse gas emissions,” Banks said.
“From the start, this agreement bypassed Congress and was more about President Obama’s political climate agenda than sound science. I am glad President Trump is following through on his campaign promise and pulling the United States out of this flawed agreement. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Science Committee to develop real solutions based on science, not politics, to address these issues.”
“President Trump made the right decision by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement,” Rokita said. “We can all acknowledge that human activity has an impact on the environment, even if very small compared to natural cycles and events, and we need to be good stewards of the planet God has given us. Even if we could isolate global temperature changes as tied to human activity alone, nothing proposed in this agreement would have any meaningful impact on global temperatures. Countries like China, and other developing nations, are still going to pump carbon into the atmosphere and they will gladly watch us damage our economy and put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage.”
The move was swiftly denounced by some, with Tesla founder Elon Musk announcing he would leave “presidential counsels” as a result of the move, and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt announcing he was “disappointed” with the President’s decision.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, former President Barack Obama, and former Mexican President Vicente Fox were among many also criticizing Trump’s actions, including a number of world leaders and the European Union’s top climate change official.
