U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman joined President Donald Trump on Tuesday bashing the United Nations over climate change policies, calling them "extreme overreach" and saying she has a duty to "defend America's independence against climate lunacy."
Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Trump levied wide-ranging criticism of the international governmental organization and called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated.”
Hageman, meanwhile, introduced new legislation that would prevent U.S. funds from paying reparations for what the U.N. sees as climate change harm stemming from fossil fuel use.
The only exceptions would occur if Congress specifically approves such reparations.
"This extreme overreach threatens Congress’s constitutional authority," Hageman tweeted. "My bill would protect American taxpayers and U.S. sovereignty from the UN’s climate change reparations scheme by blocking any federal funds from being used to pay these illegitimate international demands."
International Accords
Hageman’s bill targets a declaration two months ago by the U.N.’s main judicial arm, the International Court of Justice, concerning climate change agreements the U.S. entered into under the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations.
The ICJ declared July 23 that U.N. member states have legally binding obligations, such as limits on greenhouse gas emissions, under the various accords.
If the member states breach the obligations, “they incur legal responsibility and may be required to cease the wrongful conduct, offer guarantees of non-repetition and make full reparation depending on the circumstances,” according to a U.N. statement July 23 summarizing the ICJ’s determination.
‘Climate Lunacy’
Hageman called the ICJ declaration “extreme overreach” and said her bill would halt it in its tracks, insofar as the U.S. is concerned.
The ICJ “claims climate treaties are binding, and fossil fuel use is a punishable offense,” Hageman posted on X on Tuesday. “This extreme overreach threatens Congress’s constitutional authority.”
Hageman, who introduced her legislation late last week, added in her Tuesday post that sovereignty is at stake as well as tax dollars.
“My bill would protect American taxpayers and U.S. sovereignty from the U.N.’s climate change reparations scheme by blocking any federal funds from being used to pay these illegitimate international demands,” she wrote. “We must defend America's independence against climate lunacy that undermine our laws and priorities.”
The declaration by the ICJ — a body also known as the World Court — did not actually pertain to any specific case or dispute.
Rather, it was issued in response to guidance sought by the U.N. General Assembly on U.N. member states’ obligations under the accords, and on the ICJ’s enforcement powers.
Barrasso, Lummis
U.S. Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming supports Hageman’s legislation, a spokeswoman for Barrasso told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
“Senator Barrasso supports efforts to block the United Nations from creating green slush funds or demanding climate reparations,” said the spokeswoman, Laura Mengelkamp.
“Americans can’t afford and don’t support sending their hard-earned taxpayer dollars overseas to international bureaucrats in the name of climate change,” Mengelkamp added.
U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, is reviewing the legislation, a spokesman for her said.
“She has been a longtime champion of American energy independence and completely opposes globalist climate agreements that surrender our energy sovereignty to foreign organizations,” spokesman Joe Jackson told Cowboy State Daily.
“Wyoming taxpayers won't bankroll U.N. climate reparations that aim to kill our energy jobs and threaten American prosperity,” Jackson said.
Propping Up Others’ Economies
Hageman is the lead sponsor of the bill, and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wisconsin, signed on as an original co-sponsor.
“The U.N.’s war on affordable and reliable energy is well known,” Hageman said last week in a statement announcing the bill.
The ICJ declaration “is just another effort to push forward with radical policies that have no basis in fact or science,” she said.
“Pursuant to the ICJ theory, every single country in the world would be subject to paying reparations, as every single country consumes fossil fuels. Yet, we know that such an outcome isn’t the U.N.’s intent,” Hageman’s announcement of her bill said. “This is just another effort to force America to prop up the economies of failed states and impoverished nations.”
Although Hageman and Tiffany made clear the bill targets U.N. climate change reparations, the text of the legislation is not limited to that.
The bill would ban U.S. funds for “any reparations” ordered by “any international body or court,” unless specifically authorized by Congress.
Trump: Cooling? Warming?
Trump in his speech Tuesday condemned U.N. policies on immigration, and he touched on other topics including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He took dead aim at climate change, saying 100 years’ worth of predictions of extreme cooling and warming have all been wrong.
Said Trump:
“You know, it used to be global cooling. If you look back, years ago, in the 1920s and the 1930s, they said, ‘Global cooling will kill the world. We have to do something.’
“Then they said ‘Global warming will kill the world.’ But then it started getting cooler, so now they just call it climate change, because that way they can’t miss.
“‘Climate change.’ Because if it goes higher, or lower, whatever the hell happens, there’s climate change.
“It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump said.
He added that the predictions were made by “stupid people” who have “cost their countries fortunes and have given those same countries no chance for success.”
Democrats and many scientists have disputed Trump’s assessments and currently fault him for hostility toward wind and solar power in favor of fossil fuels.
