House Oversight Committee Demands John Kerry Turn Over CCP Climate-Negotiation Documents
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The House Oversight Committee on Thursday demanded that Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry release documents pertaining to his negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party.
In a letter obtained by National Review, committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) accuses Kerry of using his SPEC role — a cabinet-level position that was created by President Biden and does not require Senate confirmation — to engage “in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy.”
The Thursday letter represents the second such request for documents related to Kerry’s climate negotiations with America’s chief geopolitical rival; it was sent after Kerry ignored an initial request sent by Comer during the last Congress, according to Comer’s office.
Kerry has come under fire from the GOP for dismissing the CCP’s egregious human rights record and antagonism toward the U.S. in order to prioritize climate-change mitigation efforts. He has argued China’s abuses should be decoupled from climate agreements in which the U.S. and China would be co-partners.
In May 2022, Kerry told the Associated Press that he was working with the CCP to establish a group to collaborate on reducing carbon emissions.
“My hope is that President Biden said very clearly, and President Xi agreed, in their first conversation, that climate should not be part of the bilateral differences between our countries,” Kerry said in an October interview with the Council on Foreign Relations. “Climate is not a bilateral issue. It’s a global, multilateral, existential threat to the world. And we both have responsibilities as the two largest emitters to try to cope with it.”
Presented with opportunities to condemn the moral atrocities carried out by Beijing, Kerry has dodged, insisting that his only goal is to shift Chinese behavior with respect to emissions, not human beings.
During the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference last August, Kerry said China’s use of slave labor in Xinjiang for building solar panels was not his “lane.”
“Well, we’re honest. We’re honest about the differences, and we certainly know what they are and we’ve articulated them, but that’s not my lane here,” Kerry said. “That’s — my job is to be the climate guy, and stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”
Comer in his Thursday letter also accused Kerry of showing a “disregard for American national security and taxpayer dollars.”
At the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Kerry asserted that dumping funds on the climate cause is a key way to change global temperatures.
“So how do we get there? The lesson I’ve learned in last years, and I’ve learned it as secretary and leaned it since reinforced in spades, is money. money, money, money, money, money, money,” he said.
The oversight panel set a deadline of February 16 for Kerry to submit records from January 20, 2021 to the present detailing the activities and communications the office of the special envoy for climate.
When asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson said of Comer’s demands: “While the Department does not comment on Congressional inquiries, the Department works to appropriately accommodate such requests. Separately, the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate has and will continue to engage Members of Congress on international efforts to combat the climate crisis.”
