Congressional Republicans are seizing their last opportunity to absolutely ruin everything President Obama has tried to accomplish. That includes derailing the Paris climate pact in a shutdown fight.
On Dec. 11, Obama administration diplomats will be in Paris working to clinch a global climate deal that will hinge on whether they can back up a pledge to provide billions of dollars to help poor countries deal with climate change. That same day, Republicans back in Washington will be trying to hold that money hostage with a government shutdown hanging in the balance.
"We want to make sure that any of these countries that think they're going to have a check to cash because of an agreement that the president may make in Paris—that they shouldn't cash the check just yet," Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said of Republicans' strategy.
Congress must pass a new spending bill by Dec. 11, when a stopgap measure expires. The simultaneous deadlines on each side of the Atlantic Ocean give Republicans a tool to derail a legacy-defining pact for the president and score a rare victory on climate policy. They also significantly raise the stakes in this year's game of shutdown chicken.
For the record, here's just a handful of the things we've faced shutdown over: Obamacare, Planned Parenthood funding, Obama's immigration executive orders, Syrian and Iraqi refugees, and several hundred poison pill policy riders to undo net neutrality, climate regulations, Wall Street reform, public health, workers' rights—everything good, basically.
What Republicans don't have are veto-proof majorities, so their ultimate chance of success is slim. But they're going to pile whatever they can into an omnibus spending bill and see what happens next. They are, as usual, itching for a showdown with the president. And as usual, they see shutting down the government as their key.
