Dan Kildee: “Well, this amendment is actually quite simple. It says that U.S. taxpayers should not subsidize coal-fired power plants…”

“Well, this amendment is actually quite simple. It says that U.S. taxpayers should not subsidize coal-fired power plants built in other countries. Under the Obama administration, the Treasury Department issued guidance saying that the United States, through multilateral development banks, would no longer fund or support the construction of such plants in foreign countries. Unfortunately, President Trump has rolled back these efforts, and, in essence, the Trump administration is saying to the American people that American tax dollars should go overseas to subsidize fossil fuels and coal-fired power plants. I support, as many in this body do on both sides of the aisle, the efforts of multilateral development banks. In fact, the use of America's power in that sense, through entities such as the World Bank, is a great way for us to contribute to development across the globe and use that soft power in a way that potentially keeps us from having to go in a different direction. But we should not be using U.S. dollars on projects that subsidize foreign sources of pollution that contribute to increased carbon in our atmosphere and worsen climate change. Now, there are some that say that the science is not settled on this question. The people who are saying that, I am not quite sure where they are getting their science. Climate change is real. We really don't need a lot of evidence, even recently, to reinforce the notion that climate change is real.…”