--- title: 'Paris Accord Signed' slug: 'paris-accord-signed' date: 2026-05-12 type: 'post' status: 'published' tags: ['clean-air-act', 'regulatory-reform', 'policy'] abstract: '[](/images/sip/whitfield-and-clean-air-act-reform.jpg)President wants climate change legacy protected. Congressional Republicans want a better working environmental protection system.' license: 'CC-BY-4.0' author: 'Jed Anderson' co_authors: [] canonical_url: 'https://jedanderson.org/posts/paris-accord-signed' original_source: 'https://sipreform.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/paris-accord-signed/' original_date: 2015-12-14 supporting_files: [] --- [![Whitfield and Clean Air Act Reform](/images/sip/whitfield-and-clean-air-act-reform.jpg)](/images/sip/whitfield-and-clean-air-act-reform.jpg)President wants climate change legacy protected. Congressional Republicans want a better working environmental protection system. No one thought of this idea yet. Horse-trade. Create a win-win. Update the Clean Air Act to do both. What will fascinate you most is not your differences . . . but that essentially you want the same thing: a cleaner more prosperous world. You can have it. All will be well. **Politico: OBAMA’S FRAGILE CLIMATE LEGACY:** President Obama was elated by the 195 country climate accord announced on Saturday, but the future of U.S. participation in that deal, and Obama’s entire legacy on climate change, rests on a single hope: That a Democrat, or at least a non-climate denier, live in the White House in 2017. As POLITICO’s Sarah Wheaton [reports](https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2015/12/climate-change-obama-paris-083124), Obama’s climate actions, from EPA carbon regulations to military moves to go green, have come without participation from Congress. And all face significant resistance from national Republicans, including the leading GOP presidential candidates, who have either denied human-caused climate change or down-played its importance. “The President is making promises he can’t keep, writing checks he can’t cash, and stepping over the middle class to take credit for an ‘agreement’ that is subject to being shredded in 13 months,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking yesterday on ABC’s “This Week,” [offered a retort to McConnell and the GOP field](https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2015/12/john-kerry-climate-change-083123), “I don’t believe the American people, who predominately do believe what is happening with climate change … are going to accept as a genuine leader someone who doesn’t understand the science of climate change and isn’t willing to do something about it.” Read more: The world is changing. We must change with it. Time to simplify and transform the Clean Air Act to better prepare ourselves for the problems and opportunities of a 21st century world (see for example “[The Clean Air and Climate Change Act of 2016](http://wp.me/p2ofqH-oi)”). We can make it happen