Pulling the Plug on Green Grift: Why Cutting UN Treaty Funds Is a Win for America

Let’s be clear—congressional Republicans just scored a major win for the American taxpayer, common sense, and our national sovereignty. The latest rescissions package, which blocks $9 billion in unnecessary spending, includes a critical move to cut funding for obsolete and bloated United Nations environmental treaties—most notably, the Montreal Protocol.

Yes, that Montreal Protocol—the 1987 treaty we’re still bankrolling nearly four decades later. Originally crafted to phase out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), it’s now a zombie bureaucracy shuffling along on taxpayer cash, searching for new relevance long after it completed its mission.

Here’s what the left won’t tell you: the U.S. hasn’t produced CFCs since 1996. We were the world’s largest producer, and we shut it down. Mission accomplished. Yet the United Nations continues to shovel millions into the so-called “Multilateral Fund,” allegedly to help developing nations “comply” with the treaty—translation: wealth redistribution disguised as climate diplomacy.

Worse, American taxpayers are the biggest contributors. That’s right—while Americans struggle to afford air conditioning in a Bidenflated economy, we’re still footing the bill for foreign countries to chase goals we already achieved thirty years ago.

And then there’s the Kigali Amendment—a 2016 add-on to the Montreal Protocol that goes after CFC substitutes like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), claiming they’re contributors to climate change. This is environmental mission creep at its finest—regulating the solution to the original “problem.” It’s like fixing a flat tire, then outlawing the spare.

Let’s connect the dots: because of this amendment and its domestic partner, the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, the cost of cooling your home is rising fast. Marc Morano, founder of Climate Depot and former Senate staffer, has documented how these global climate pacts are not about science—they’re about control. As Morano’s research consistently shows, the climate movement’s endgame is centralized planning and global governance, not environmental stewardship. The Kigali Amendment is a textbook example. It’s driven by alarmist projections, not actual harm. And guess who gets stuck with the bill? You do.

The left loves to lecture us about “following the science.” But when the science changes—when ozone depletion stabilizes, or when warming models fail to match reality—they don’t adapt. They double down. Why? Because it was never about the science. It was about building permanent bureaucracies with unaccountable power.

Even the EPA—yes, our own Environmental Protection Agency—has refused to scale back outdated programs. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes in Modernizing the EPA: A Blueprint for Congress, environmental bureaucracies rarely shut themselves down. They just keep morphing into something new—new mandates, new restrictions, new taxes—all while pretending the crisis is still raging.

So here’s the real scandal: the same Democrats who want to defund the police, ICE, and our border security are furious that we’re cutting funds from UN treaties. You can’t make this up. They’ll scream “climate justice” while they ignore the real struggles of working Americans—people who just want to keep their lights on and homes cool without paying a green premium.

They called the rescissions “draconian.” But is it “draconian” to stop funding a treaty that solved its problem decades ago? Is it “draconian” to prioritize domestic needs over endless international virtue signaling?

Of course, the environmental left is already spinning. They claim that pulling funding from the Montreal Protocol endangers our progress. Nonsense. As Morano and other climate realists have shown, the Protocol’s success has become a tool of propaganda. The original goal—reducing ozone-depleting substances—was met. Now, it’s just a gateway to deeper international climate regulations. It’s the camel’s nose under the tent.

This is the same left that routinely demands “comprehensive reform” of law enforcement, education, and health care, but never applies that standard to bloated international climate bureaucracies. Where’s the accountability? Where’s the return on investment?

Here’s the bottom line: the rescissions package doesn’t repeal the Montreal Protocol or the Kigali Amendment (though it should). What it does is stop the bleeding. It halts more funding from being dumped into a program that long ago fulfilled its mission but refuses to retire. It stops the Biden administration from using international climate treaties as backdoor ways to impose regulations Congress never approved.

Conservatives have long warned about globalism’s creep into American governance. Treaties like these are how it happens. They sound noble, they’re wrapped in “consensus,” and they end up costing Americans more while giving power to unelected bureaucrats abroad.

So let’s give credit where it’s due. Republicans in Congress took a stand. They said enough is enough. No more blank checks to the UN. No more subsidies for global climate activism. No more pretending that international virtue-signaling is worth sacrificing American jobs, comfort, and freedom.

This should be just the beginning. The next step should be full withdrawal from the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment. And we need to keep defunding every other unnecessary international climate pact while we’re at it.

Because in the end, real environmental progress doesn’t come from the UN. It comes from innovation, competition, and sovereignty. And that’s what this bill defends.

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Endnotes:

1. Morano, Marc. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change. Regnery Publishing, 2018.
2. ClimateDepot.com – Ongoing documentation of climate treaty costs and mission creep.
3. Competitive Enterprise Institute. Modernizing the EPA: A Blueprint for Congress, 2023.
4. U.S. EPA – Historical CFC phase-out data.
5. U.S. Congressional Budget Office – Rescissions package summary, 2025.

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Aaron Ackerman is a contributor to Direct Line News, he can be contacted at Aaron.Ackerman@mcgopclub.com

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