House Oversight Republicans are now setting their sights on President Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry’s negotiations with China.
Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., wrote to Kerry Thursday afternoon to tell him his climate talks with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would now be under scrutiny.
Comer said the committee had requested details on Kerry’s communications last Congress only to be met with silence, and was now trying again with the weight of the majority behind them.
‘To date, you have failed to respond to any of our requests,’ Comer wrote to Kerry. ‘Yet, you continue to engage in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy.’
House Oversight Republicans are now setting their sights on President Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry’s negotiations with China
The letter notes that a report from May 2022 has Kerry saying he was in negotiations with the CCP to form a group to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Comer also said Kerry had ‘continued to downplay the CCP’s human rights violations and its antagonism against the U.S. while promoting climate negotiations that the CCP does not even appear interested in entering.’
Kerry’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
Biden made Kerry his Special Presidential Envoy on Climate, a Cabinet-level position that did not require the approval of the Senate, just after taking office in 2021. The role also gives Kerry a seat on the president’s National Security Council.
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In April 2021, Kerry became the first senior Biden official to visit China.
With the new role Kerry hired a 45-person staff which operates under the State Department and runs on an estimated $13.9 million budget.
The letter notes that a report from May 2022 has Kerry saying he was in negotiations with the CCP to form a group to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Kerry and his staff handle global climate matters, while another team – the Climate Policy Office lead by Ali Zaidi – handles domestic climate policy. Biden also relies on senior adviser for clean energy innovation and implementation John Podesta for domestic climate matters.
Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Kerry said that thawing U.S.-China tensions could be key to preventing a climate emergency.
‘We very much hope to be able to find the pathway to a breakthrough that could make a huge difference,’ Kerry said.
China ended cooperation with the U.S. on drug trafficking and climate change last summer after then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a trip to Taiwan. It reopened talks following a meeting between Biden and President Xi Jinping late last year.
China is responsible for about a third of the world’s greenhouse gases, according to the World Bank.
