Staking middle ground
On May 2, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 231-190 to pass its first climate bill in nearly a decade. Known as the Climate Action Now Act, it urges President Donald Trump to remain in the Obama-era Paris climate accord and take steps to reach its emissions goals.
It is nowhere near as wide-ranging as the Green New Deal advanced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who nonetheless voted in favor of Climate Action Now. “I think we need to support whatever action on climate that we can get,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I certainly think that we need to do more, and it’s not about any one bill.”
Perhaps a more significant vote in favor of Climate Action Now came from another New York representative, Elise Stefanik, one of only three House Republicans to support the measure. Stefanik, who represents the state’s 21st District, encompassing most of the Adirondack Park, has been quietly carving out a middle ground between her own party’s broad dismissal of environmental legislation and most Democrats’ consistent support of air- and water-quality regulation and efforts to promote renewable energy and combat climate change.
The Climate Action Now Act is largely symbolic, intended to underscore the clear distinction between the two parties on climate change. There is no companion bill in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said it “will go nowhere.”
