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SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 8
INTRODUCED BY D. BARRETT
A JOINT RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF MONTANA DIRECTING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CONGRESS TO TAKE ACTION TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND TO PARTICIPATE IN INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
WHEREAS, a global consensus of climate scientists has established with high confidence that climate change is ongoing, is primarily the result of human activity, and is destroying and will continue to destroy the natural systems and economies on which human well-being depends; and
WHEREAS, the 2018 United States National Climate Assessment has determined that climate change, if unchecked, will substantially reduce the future health and productivity of the American economy; and
WHEREAS, climate change is already damaging Montana's economy and natural environment by altering the availability of water for agriculture and recreation, degrading forest health, and intensifying wildfires; and
WHEREAS, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that limiting climate change to minimally tolerable levels will require immediate and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity; and
WHEREAS, rather than declining, greenhouse gas emissions, including those of the United States, grew sharply in 2018; and
WHEREAS, because no one nation, acting alone, can reverse the current course of climate change, an effective effort to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions will require concerted and coordinated international action; and
WHEREAS, no such coordinated international action can be effective without the participation and leadership of the United States; and
WHEREAS, the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, to which the United States was a signatory, provided a framework for concerted and coordinated international action; and
WHEREAS, the measures taken by individual states of the United States to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, while essential to the effort to combat climate change, do not by themselves result in adequate emissions reductions for the nation as a whole; and
WHEREAS, a concerted effort of the states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions requires the formulation and enforcement, at the federal level, of effective policies to limit climate change; and
WHEREAS, the President of the United States, acting on his own and through executive orders, has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and dismantled key elements of existing national climate policies.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:
That the 66th Legislature finds that:
(1) it is essential to the future well-being of the people of Montana and to the health and integrity of the state's natural environment and economy that global climate change be arrested;
(2) the President and Congress of the United States have an obligation to reintegrate the nation into the Paris Climate Agreement and the ongoing international effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and
(3) the President and Congress of the United States have a duty to reestablish or create national policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions as are necessary to meet or exceed the nation's international obligations.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that copies of this resolution be sent to the President of the United States and to members of Montana's Congressional Delegation for their consideration and action.
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Latest Version of SJ 8 (SJ0008.01)
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