This should send shivers of defeat through the bodies of all Republicans
(Politico) Top Republican lawmakers are planning a wide-ranging offensive — including outreach to foreign officials by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office — to undermine President Barack Obama’s hopes of reaching an international climate change agreement that would cement his environmental legacy.
The GOP strategy, emerging after months of quiet discussions, includes sowing doubts about Obama’s climate policies at home and abroad, trying to block key environmental regulations in Congress, and challenging the legitimacy of the president’s attempts to craft a global agreement without submitting a treaty to the Senate.
A top policy aide to McConnell (R-Ky.) has had conversations with a select group of representatives from foreign embassies to make it clear that Republicans intend to fight Obama’s climate agenda at every turn, sources familiar with the efforts say.
This is the same McConnell who essentially surrendered to Obama on the Iran deal, rather than fighting on. This is the same McConnell who has consistently surrendered to Obama and the Democrats. I have zero confidence that he won’t do the same here.
McConnell himself warned foreign leaders last spring to “proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal†with Obama, noting that “two-thirds of the U.S. federal government” — Congress and the Supreme Court — hasn’t signed off on the president’s plans.
McConnell has about the same credibility as Obama does on foreign policy: none. The majority of Americans are against the Iran deal, wanted the Senate to vote on it, and wanted the Senate to kill the deal. McConnell washed his hands of the whole affair. Why wouldn’t we think he would do the same with anything that comes out of the Paris “climate change” meetings?
