#TakeAction – April 30, 2019

Good morning. Let’s #TakeAction for Tuesday, April 30, 2019.

🔶 Support H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act
🔶 Urge our Senators to Override Trump’s Veto of S.J. Res.7
🔶 Call Rep. Schrier to Support H.Res.257

1. (ACTION) Support H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act

• Background: The U.S. is a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Ratified in 1992, the UNFCCC was the first international treaty to recognize that human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases; that those increases are contributing to global warming; and that the adverse effects of this warming are “a common concern of humankind.” In 2015, 194 parties to the UNFCCC, including the U.S., reached the Paris Agreement, which is designed to combat climate change by accelerating and intensifying the actions needed to strengthen the global response. Even though the Paris Agreement doesn’t include legally binding requirements for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, each participating country has pledged to the world and to its citizens to make ambitious efforts to assure that it achieves its own “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) to the overall key goal of limiting the rise in global average temperatures to 1.5 o C above pre-industrial levels. The U.S. submitted its initial NDC in 2015, pledging by 2025 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels. However, in 2017 President Trump announced that the U.S. will give formal notice of its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement as soon as the U.S. becomes eligible to withdraw in November 2019. In the meantime, the Trump administration’s rollback of U.S. mitigation policies is contributing to the possibility that average global temperatures may increase by 3o C by the end of the century – an increase that by all accounts would have catastrophic results. Furthermore, new scientific analyses indicate that the window for meaningful climate action is shrinking faster than previously expected, and the effects will be far greater and felt more intensely by every part of the country. H.R. 9 is intended to force the administration to keep the U.S. on track to doing its part to avoid a global climate catastrophe. Rep. Schrier deserves our thanks for publicly supporting that legislation from its inception.
• Sources: House Rules Committee page on H.R. 9 (with links to text and Committee Reports): https://rules.house.gov/bill/116/hr-9

2. (ACTION) Urge our Senators to Override Trump’s Veto of S.J. Res.7, calling for the removal from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen of U.S. Armed Forces not authorized by Congress

• Background: While neither side in the conflict in Yemen is blame-free, the coalition of forces led by Saudi Arabia, supported by U.S. military personnel, has caused extraordinary suffering with over 18,000 airstrikes since 2015, one-third of which have hit non-military targets. If U.S. forces are to be used to support such action in Yemen, it should only be with Congressional approval. S.J.Res.7 would direct the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities in Yemen, other than actions against al-Qaeda or its associated forces, unless otherwise authorized by Congress.
• Sources:
  • Vox article on Senate passage of resolution: https://www.vox.com/…/senate-yemen-saudi-arabia…
  • Defense News article on Senate passage of resolution: https://www.defensenews.com/…/us-senate-passes-yemen…/

3. (ACTION) Call Rep. Schrier to support H.Res.257, asking the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether President Trump should be impeached

• Date: On-going
• Background: The House Judiciary needs to start the process to determine whether President Trump ought to be impeached. Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s resolution, H.Res.257, would call upon the House Judiciary to inquire whether President Trump should be impeached. I urge Rep. Schrier to co-sponsor and support that resolution. It’s clear from the Mueller Report that the Special Counsel left it to Congress, and specifically the House, to determine whether the President’s actions constituted and crime and warrant impeachment.
• Source: Indivisible call to action: https://act.indivisible.org/call/impeachment-resolution/

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