House leadership harms climate with USMCA deal

Pelosi, House leadership, push planet towards climate crisis with USMCA deal

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives today voted to approve the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, aka Trump’s NAFTA. The USMCA will facilitate increased production and trade in tars sands oil and fracked gas across the three countries, give corporate polluters a leg-up in challenging environmental regulations and allow oil and gas giants like Chevron and ExxonMobil to challenge climate and environmental protections in private tribunals. 

The new USMCA fails to address nearly all environmental issues raised by communities from across North America and will fail to protect people and the planet from toxic pollution at the local, national and international levels.

In response to the vote, Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth U.S., issued the following statement: 

Despite the severity of the global climate crisis, Trump’s USMCA fails to even mention, much less address climate change. Just a week after the United Nations climate summit, Speaker Pelosi is ramrodding through a trade agreement that will accelerate climate change. 

Despite the existential threat that global warming poses, Democrats are voting to pass the USMCA, pushing the planet further toward climate chaos. As this trade deal begins to poison communities with toxic pollution, we hope our congressional representatives have a plan to deal with the havoc this deal will have on climate and public health. 

Expert contact: Doug Norlen, (510) 900-3143, [email protected]
Communications contact: Patrick Davis, (202) 222-0744, [email protected]

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