130+ Dems Call on Trump to Reverse Day-One Withdrawal of U.S. from Paris Climate Accords

January 24, 2025

WASHINGTON — U.S. Representatives Jared Huffman (CA-02), Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, Brad Schneider (IL-10), Gregory W. Meeks (NY-05), and Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03) were joined by more than 130 House Democrats to introduce a resolution expressing condemning President Trump's Day One Executive Order to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. A similar resolution was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and 21 Senators.

The resolution articulates the dire consequences of global climate change for U.S. national security, public health, prosperity, and the legacy we will leave to our children. The resolution highlights historic investments the U.S. has made in clean energy technologies and combatting climate change over the past four years and makes clear that withdrawal from the Paris Agreement means ceding U.S. leadership on clean energy technologies and the good-paying jobs they create to countries overseas, especially China.

 “Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement not only jeopardizes our climate progress and forfeits America’s position as a global leader – it is a shameful betrayal of the American people. By siding with Big Oil and corporate polluters, he’s abandoning our responsibility to confront the climate crisis and leaving families vulnerable to more extreme weather, rising costs, and worsening health impacts,” said House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Huffman. “My colleagues and I resoundingly condemn Trump’s cowardly withdrawal and want to make it clear: We will not back down in the fight to protect our planet, communities, and future generations from the growing threat of climate change.” 

“A climate crisis is unfolding before our eyes that already costs the U.S. tens of billions of dollars per year,” said Rep. Schneider. “That’s why over the past four years, Congress has passed historic investments to transition to a clean energy economy, slow climate change, and create good-paying jobs through laws such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement sends a signal to our allies that the US is turning its back on a healthy and safe future for our world. This decision puts us at a competitive disadvantage to adversaries like China and lowers global ambition to address climate change with the seriousness and urgency it demands.”

 “Donald Trump's decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement is devastating to global efforts to combat climate change,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Meeks. “By embracing climate denialism, these extremist policies have turned the United States into a global outlier on this critical issue. With extreme weather events worsening—whether it’s the flooding that devastated parts of Florida and North Carolina late last year to the Los Angeles wildfires, this reckless move only heightens the urgency for science-based leadership to safeguard our planet's future.”

“As someone that worked directly on the Paris Climate Agreement at the United Nations, I know that Trump's Day One withdrawal from this agreement will do more than set us back decades on our climate goals -- it will damage our nation's position as a leader on the world stage,” said Rep. Ansari, who serves as Ranking Member on the House Natural Resources Energy and Minerals Subcommittee. “And, as a Representative of Phoenix, Arizona, my constituents and I see the effects of climate change--from deadly heat to devastating drought--every single day. I stand firmly with my colleagues in condemning this action.”

“Over the past four years, the United States has supercharged its international climate leadership with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate and clean energy investment in history, which has already created more than 400,000 jobs and unleashed $420 billion in clean energy investments nationwide. By withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, President Trump is attempting to sacrifice our leadership on the world stage and put our livable future at risk—all for the benefit of Big Oil billionaires,” said Sen. Markey. “But our national climate agenda doesn’t live or die by President Trump’s pen, which is why I am reintroducing the We Are Still In resolution, signaling that climate action will continue to create good-paying jobs and a healthy environment regardless of our official stature within the Paris climate agreement. To our international allies: when it comes to fighting the climate crisis by your side, we still mean business.”  

On November 4, 2020, the first Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement. The Biden administration re-entered the United States back into the agreement in January 2021.

The Climate Action Campaign, a coalition consisting of twelve major U.S. environmental organizations, and the Natural Resources Defense Council endorse the resolution.

The 130+ House Democrats cosponsoring the resolution include Reps. Schneider, Huffman, Meeks, Ansari, Adams, Amo, Auchincloss, Barragan, Beatty, Bera, Beyer, Bonamici, Boyle, Brown, Brownley, Budzinski, Carbajal, Carter, Case, Casten, Castor, Castro, Cherfilus-McCormick, Chu, Cisneros, Clarke, Cleaver, Clyburn, Cohen, Connolly, Correa, Costa, Courtney, Crockett, Crow, Davids, DeGette, DeLauro, DeSaulnier, Dexter, Dingell, Doggett, Elfreth, Escobar, Fernandez, Fletcher, Foster, Foushee, Friedman, Garamendi, Chuy Garcia, Robert Garcia, Goldman, Gomez, Gottheimer, Grijalva, Hayes, Hoyer, Ivey, Jonathan Jackson, Jacobs, Jayapal, Hank Johnson, Kamlager-Dove, Keating, Kelly, Khanna, Krishnamoorthi, Larsen, Larson, Latimer, Summer Lee, Levin, Liccardo, Lynch, Magaziner, Matsui, McBath, McClain-Delaney, McClellan, McCollum, McGarvey, McGovern, Menendez, Meng, Min, Morelle, Moulton, Mullin, Nadler, Norton, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pappas, Panetta, Peters, Pingree, Pocan, Quigley, Ramirez, Randall, Ross, Sanchez, Scanlon, Schakowsky, Bobby Scott, Sherman, Sherrill, Adam Smith, Sorenson, Stanton, Stevens, Strickland, Subramanyam, Suozzi, Swalwell, Takano, Thanedar, Bennie Thompson, Mike Thompson, Titus, Tokuda, Tonko, Ritchie Torres, Underwood, Vargas, Velazquez, Waters, Watson Coleman, Whitesides, Nikema Williams, and Wilson.

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