Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst presented her monthly squeal award — which recognizes a wasteful Washington expense — to the Biden administration and specifically White House Climate Envoy John Kerry for officials’ fossil-fueled overseas trips to lecture the world on climate.
After world leaders convened in Egypt for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27), Ernst, along with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) track the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the Biden administration’s travel to the conference.
The GAO report was inconclusive because the “State Department did not track greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. delegation travel to meetings 26 and 27 of the United Nations Conference of the Parties.”
“State officials told us that they did not have a systematic way to calculate greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. delegation travel to COP26, COP27, or any past meetings of the Conference of the Parties,” the GAO reported.
The GAO did find, however, that 191 executive branch staff attended the COP26 in Scotland, and 259 attended the COP27 from across more than a dozen federal agencies.
Despite President Joe Biden signing an executive order instructing agencies to track emissions from travel, the State Department has yet to comply. While federal agencies skirt presidential directives, the Biden administration is also advancing regulations to mandate businesses track and report emissions data.
Within the last year, Kerry led overseas trips on climate to Egypt,
