Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri ripped the Biden administration for pursuing a climate deal with the People’s Republic of China Thursday, saying China didn’t hold up its end of past agreements.
The State Department announced an effort to work with China to combat climate change in a Tuesday release, even as China continues to build coal-fired power plants at a rate of two per week; China’s climate envoy said it was “unrealistic” to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in September. “They have not lived up to any sort of these agreements before, even if you accept the premise that somehow human beings have outsized role controlling weather even if you accept that premise, China has not done anything,” Schmitt told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. (RELATED: ‘Grandest Wager’: China Expert Says Biden’s Soft Stance Has Been Tried Before, Only Made Country More Hostile To US)
“They’re building all these coal-fired plants. They have emissions twice that of the United States, yet we’re doing a couple things. One is, we’re declaring war on domestic energy production, we’re not energy independent. We should be,” Schmitt continued. “We should be exporting that to our friends and allies around the globe, that provides a lot of strength and independence. But we’re becoming overly dependent on China with supply chains including critical minerals and other materials you need for EV push that Americans don’t want to buy.”
WATCH:
The Biden administration cancelled a planned offshore lease sale in May 2022 after issuing new regulations for onshore drilling and revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline in January 2021. A federal appeals court ordered the administration to carry out the sale of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday.
“China is not doing any of this stuff you want them to do. We hope they will but they’re not right? The people that suffer are Americans. We pay higher prices for everything. We’re overly reliant on China, there is no question about that they’re just not interested in doing any of these things and we’re in a real-world competition,” Schmitt said when Kudlow cited a Daily Caller News Foundation article on the agreement.
“When they write the history books, Larry of the 21st century, who prevails, China or the United States and it’s a rival like we never had before. We had a military rival with the Soviet Union. They were a nuclear power. They weren’t a economic rival. We have all of that with China. They come in and playing Joe Biden for a fool here, acting like they will do something on climate.”
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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