Tag: Donald Trump Trump administration

Senate rejects attempt to curb Trump’s Iran war powers

The Hill logoSenators blocked an effort on Friday to restrict President Trump’s ability to go to war with Iran, handing a victory to Republicans and the White House.  

Senators voted 50-40 on the proposal from Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine (Va.) and Tom Udall (N.M.) to block the president from using funding to carry out military action without congressional authorization. 

Sixty yes votes would have been required to get the amendment added to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In a round of unusual procedural maneuvering, senators passed the mammoth defense bill on Thursday, but agreed to add the Kaine-Udall proposal retroactively if they could secure the votes.

View the complete June 28 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Trump administration resists global climate efforts at home and overseas

Scientists say global warming nears an irreversible level, President Trump has been promoting business growth instead of climate change. (Jenny Starrs /The Washington Post)

The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures.

Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid catastrophic warming.

“There was going to be an agreement to welcome the . . . report,” said Jake Schmidt, the managing director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international program, who is in Poland. “The U.S. wanted to ‘note’ it, which is saying in essence that we know it’s out there but we have no comment.”

View the complete December 9 article by David Nakamura and Darryl Fears on The Washington Post website here.