Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked about climate change and forest fires, he was ready with a response: Plant a trillion trees.
The idea — simple yet massively ambitious — revealed recent Republican thinking on how to address climate change. The party is no longer denying that global warming exists, yet is searching for a response to sweltering summers, weather disasters and rising sea levels that doesn’t involve abandoning their enthusiastic support for American-produced energy from burning oil, coal and gas.
“We need to manage our forests better so our environment can be stronger,” McCarthy said, adding, “Let’s replace Russian natural gas with American natural gas and let’s not only have a cleaner world, let’s have a safer world.”
The Biden administration has also boosted exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe after Russia, one of the continent’s largest suppliers of energy, invaded Ukraine. The Democratic president has also said that coal, oil and gas will be part of America’s energy supply for years to come.
Scientists overwhelmingly agree that heat-trapping gases released from the combustion of fossil fuels are pushing up global temperatures, upending weather patterns around the globe and endangering animal species. But the solution long touted by Democrats and environmental advocates — government action to force emissions reductions — remains a non-starter with most Republicans.
Enter the idea of planting a trillion trees. A 2019 study suggested that planting trees to suck up heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could be one of the most effective ways to fight climate change. Major conservation groups, and former President Donald Trump, who downplayed humanity’s role in climate change, embraced the idea.
But the tree-planting push has drawn intense pushback from environmental scientists who call it a distraction from cutting emissions from fossil fuels. The authors of the original study have also clarified that planting trees does not eliminate “the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Planting one trillion trees would also require a massive amount of space — roughly the size of the continental United States. And more trees could even increase the risk of wildfires by serving as fuel in a warming world.
“There is a lot of value to planting trees, but it is not a panacea,” said Mark Ashton, a professor of forest ecology at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
The GOP’s new approach on climate was apparent in 2021. McCarthy and other GOP lawmakers, led by Arkansas Rep. Bruce Westerman, backed a bill to incentivize growing timber forests in the U.S. as part of a worldwide effort to plant 1 trillion trees. Westerman said he expects a similar proposal to advance this year.
For Republicans, the bill checks the right boxes. It is friendly to the timber industry and touts a climate solution — sequestering a massive amount of carbon from manmade emissions — that would also partially alleviate the need to wean the country off fossil fuels.
Now that he has a slim House majority, McCarthy has also pushed for expanded energy production. He made the “ Lower Energy Costs Act” the top legislative priority of the new GOP majority, as signified by its bill number — H.R. 1. The proposal, which passed the House on a mostly party-line vote in March, would spur American energy production, especially oil, gas and coal.
Democrats like President Joe Biden rejected the bill as a “thinly veiled license to pollute,” but Republicans argued it would reduce carbon emissions because U.S.-produced fossil fuels are usually cleaner than those produced overseas.
“What we’ve been able to demonstrate to the Republican conference is that the strategies that actually work are those that are actually increasing U.S. resources,” said Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, one of McCarthy’s top lieutenants on energy and environmental issues. “It lowers energy prices, it lowers emissions, and it makes us more energy independent.”
The energy legislation also would increase production of critical minerals such as lithium that are used in batteries for electric vehicles, computers and cellphones — a priority Biden shares. House Republicans and many Democrats have also advanced proposals to speed permitting for energy projects of all types, including those for “clean energy” such as wind, solar and geothermal power.
“I keep reminding Republicans that H.R. 1 made energy affordable, reliable, and clean,” said Utah Rep. John Curtis, who has become a leading Republican voice on environmental issues. “We’re very quick to point out that it made it affordable and reliable. Sometimes we forget to remind people: yes, and clean. That’s an important part.”
