At the start of the 2016 Republican National Convention, the GOP on Monday adopted a platform heaped with support for the continued used of coal and decrying the current administration’s climate change efforts. The platform, as agreed to during a July 11 meeting of the platform committee, states that “coal is an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource” – a fact that, according to the GOP, the Democratic Party does not understand.
The platform boasts party support for all fuel sources, but says they should be supported by the market without subsidies. “We support the development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower,” the platform says, later stating, “[w]e encourage the cost-effective development of renewable energy sources — wind, solar, biomass, biofuel, geothermal, and tidal energy — by private capital.”
According to a 2014 Treasury Department 2014 report to the Group of 20 nations, “In total, the United States government has identified eleven Federal fossil fuel production tax provisions, as shown below. Combined, these provisions total USD 4.7 billion in annual revenue cost (nominal annual average figure based on the 10-year revenue estimate).”
A 2015 report by the Energy Information Administration states that renewable energy sources, including biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, and wind, received $15.6 billion in energy-specific subsidies in fiscal year 2013.
Ending fossil fuel subsidies may be the only point the GOP and Democratic platforms have in common. Last week, the Democratic platform committee approved a document calling for the end of tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuel companies.
However, the Democratic platform emphasizes a need to transition quickly to low- and no-carbon energy sources, veering off from the “all-of-the-above” energy strategy pursued by President Barack Obama. “We are committed to getting 50 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources within a decade, with half a billion solar panels installed within four years and enough renewable energy to power every home in the country,” the platform says.
The GOP platform directly opposes implementation of a carbon tax — a measure subtly supported by its Democratic counterpart – on the grounds that “it would increase energy prices across the board, hitting hardest at the families who are already struggling to pay their bills in the Democrats’ no-growth economy.”
Clean coal technology, a concept that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says he “loves,” gets a nod in the GOP platform: “We urge the private sector to focus its resources on the development of carbon capture and sequestration technology still in its early stages here and overseas.”
Not faring as well as coal in the platform is the United States’ participation in the Paris climate change agreement, or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “We reject the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which represent only the personal commitments of their signatories; no such agreement can be binding upon the United States until it is submitted to and ratified by the Senate,” the platform says. The United States is not a party to the Kyoto Protocol.
The platform also states that U.S. contributions to the UNFCCC and the associated Green Climate Fund should be ended. The Obama administration has pledged to contribute $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which is intended to promote climate action in developing nations, and has made one $500 million payment thus far.
“We demand an immediate halt to U.S. funding for the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in accordance with the 1994 Foreign Relations Authorization Act. That law prohibits Washington from giving any money to ‘any affiliated organization of the United Nations’ which grants Palestinians membership as a state. There is no ambiguity in that language. It would be illegal for the President to follow through on his intention to provide millions in funding for the UNFCCC and hundreds of millions for its Green Climate Fund,” the platform says.
This argument against the UNFCCC began in March when Palestine joined the Paris Agreement. The Department of State has countered that the UNFCCC is a treaty, not an organization, and thus the Foreign Relations Authorization Act does not apply.
Also in the GOP’s crosshairs is the Environmental Protection Agency. “The environment is too important to be left to radical environmentalists,” the platform says. “Over the last eight years, the Administration has triggered an avalanche of regulation that wreaks havoc across our economy and yields minimal environmental benefits.”
The platform calls for transforming the EPA “into an independent bipartisan commission, similar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with structural safeguards against politicized science. We will strictly limit congressional delegation of rule-making authority, and require that citizens be compensated for regulatory takings.”
A GOP administration would promptly undo many actions the EPA has taken in the last eight years, according to the platform. “We will … forbid the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, something never envisioned when Congress passed the Clean Air Act,” it says, making clear reference to the agency’s carbon pollution standards for new and existing coal-fired power plants, the New Source Performance Standard and the Clean Power Plan, respectively.
The platform also takes a shot at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body operating under the United Nations to review scientific data related to climate change: “Information concerning a changing climate, especially projections into the long-range future, must be based on dispassionate analysis of hard data. We will enforce that standard throughout the executive branch, among civil servants and presidential appointees alike. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution.”
