IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 59 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Paris Agree-
ment shall have no effect in the United States until it is renegotiated 
to ensure the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases reduce their 
greenhouse gas emissions and receives the advice and consent to ratifica-
tion of the United States Senate. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 21, 2021 
Mr. MCKINLEY (for himself, Mr. RESCHENTHALER, Mr. MOONEY, Mr. 
COMER, Mr. PFLUGER, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. LATTA, Mr. ROUZER, Mr. 
BARR, Mr. BUCSHON, Mr. BURGESS, Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania, Mr. 
BANKS, Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio, and Mr. MOORE of Alabama) submitted 
the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the Paris Agreement shall have no effect in the United 
States until it is renegotiated to ensure the world’s larg-
est emitters of greenhouse gases reduce their greenhouse 
gas emissions and receives the advice and consent to 
ratification of the United States Senate. 
Whereas, on May 9, 1992, the United States Senate provided 
its advice and consent to ratification regarding the 
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate 
Change (‘‘Framework Convention’’), which entered into 
force on March 21, 1994; 
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•HRES 59 IH 
Whereas the Framework Convention was ratified under the 
express limitation ‘‘that a decision by the Conference of 
the Parties to adopt targets and timetables would have 
to be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent’’; 
Whereas the Kyoto Protocol, completed at the 3d Conference 
of the Parties (‘‘COP’’) to the Framework Convention in 
December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, contains emissions tar-
gets and timetables, and was signed by President William 
Jefferson Clinton on behalf of the United States but 
never submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent 
to ratification; 
Whereas, on July 25, 1997, prior to President William Jef-
ferson Clinton’s signing of the Kyoto Protocol, then-Sen-
ator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., joined his colleagues in the 
Senate in unanimously passing the Byrd-Hagel Resolu-
tion, which expressed congressional disapproval of any 
international agreement that did not require developing 
countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and 
‘‘would seriously harm the economy of the United 
States’’; 
Whereas the COP in Durban, South Africa, agreed to the 
Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which charged 
the Parties with adopting a ‘‘protocol, another legal in-
strument, or an agreed outcome with legal force’’ at the 
21st COP; 
Whereas the Paris Agreement represents the COP’s most re-
cent attempt to impose legally binding requirements on 
all parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as envi-
sioned by the Durban Platform; 
Whereas the Paris Agreement ‘‘and every article and clause 
thereof’’ was accepted by President Barack Obama on be-
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•HRES 59 IH 
half of the United States solely through executive action, 
rather than submitted to the Senate for its advice and 
consent to ratification; 
Whereas 178 of the 196 parties to the Paris Agreement, 
other than the United States, believe it to be a treaty and 
have formally ratified it through their respective proc-
esses; 
Whereas mere executive approval of the Paris Agreement 
does not give it any force of law in the United States and 
cannot be used to justify regulation; 
Whereas implementation of the Paris Agreement, absent the 
advice and consent to ratification of the United States 
Senate, would require pursuing unilateral and punitive 
regulatory policies harmful to United States economic 
competitiveness, including significant job loss, increased 
energy and consumer costs, risks to grid reliability, or 
any combination thereof; 
Whereas when originally negotiating the Paris Agreement, in-
coming Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John 
Kerry stated, ‘‘if . . . all the industrial nations went 
down to zero emissions, it wouldn’t be enough, not when 
more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution 
comes from the developing world’’; 
Whereas the Paris Agreement continues to treat the People’s 
Republic of China, the world’s second largest economy 
and largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, as a ‘‘devel-
oping country’’, and therefore enables this nation to con-
tinue to pursue energy and industrial policies that under-
mine the economic interests of the United States and its 
citizens; 
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•HRES 59 IH 
Whereas to protect the interests of the United States and its 
citizens, prior to its submission to the United States Sen-
ate for its advice and consent to ratification, the Paris 
Agreement should be renegotiated to ensure the People’s 
Republic of China and other of the world’s largest 
emitters of greenhouse gases, including the Republic of 
India and the Russian Federation, reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions at a pace and scale equivalent to that of the 
United States, members of the European Union, and 
other advanced nations; 
Whereas, between 1990 and 2018, global carbon dioxide 
emissions grew by 62 percent despite nearly 30 years of 
international climate agreements; 
Whereas the emissions reduction goals of the Paris Agree-
ment cannot be met without the development and global 
deployment of affordable energy technologies, including 
storage, nuclear, and clean fossil technologies, as well as 
commercial-scale carbon, capture, utilization, and storage 
technologies; 
Whereas development and deployment of these technologies to 
meet the needs of nations striving to improve human wel-
fare cannot take place under regulatory and legal regimes 
that stifle American economic growth and prosperity; 
Whereas the United States withdrew from the Paris Agree-
ment, pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, which 
President Donald J. Trump first announced on June 1, 
2017, and took effect on November 4, 2020; and 
Whereas, on January 20, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden, 
Jr., signed an Executive order to reenter the Paris 
Agreement: Now, therefore, be it 
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•HRES 59 IH 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that until the Paris Agreement is renegotiated 
to ensure the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases 
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, submitted to the 
United States Senate for its advice and consent to ratifica-
tion, and subsequently approved by the United States Sen-
ate exercising its article II responsibilities— 
(1) the Paris Agreement shall not have the 
force or effect of a treaty; 
(2) none of its provisions are binding on the 
United States in any way; 
(3) executive emissions pledges made under the 
Paris Agreement on behalf of the United States 
shall have no effect and are not binding; 
(4) the Paris Agreement cannot be used as the 
legal basis for regulation; and 
(5) Congress should refuse to consider any 
budget resolutions and appropriations language that 
include funding for the Green Climate Fund or any 
affiliated body or financing mechanism. 
Æ 
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