Governors' Wind Energy Coalition

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a resolution supporting the Paris climate agreement, a symbolic effort as international negotiators meet in Madrid for United Nations climate talks.

The resolution, which has more than a dozen Democratic co-sponsors, would express support for the agreement and note steps by states and localities to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets.

“We wrote a new chapter for the United States that captured our commitment to our people, our planet, and to other nations when we signed the Paris climate agreement,” Markey said in a statement. “Despite President Trump’s fealty to fossil fuels, we will not abandon our duty to global climate leadership.”

The resolution comes in the middle of this year’s U.N. climate conference, known as COP25, where negotiators are hashing out the rules for the carbon trading systems some countries plan to use to meet their emissions goals.

The Trump administration formally began the process of withdrawing from Paris last month, but State Department career officials are in Madrid representing the United States.

Democrats also passed a bill, H.R. 9, to force Trump to reenter the agreement through the House earlier this year, but the legislation was dead on arrival in the Republican Senate.

The other co-sponsors of the new resolution include Environment and Public Works ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.), Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and two presidential candidates — Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

The other supporters are Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).