Pelosi to China kicking off recess Codels

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is leading a group of lawmakers on a trip to China this week to press for global cooperation on efforts to stem climate change.

Pelosi said before her trip that decisions need to be made now to help prevent global warming.

“The urgency of the global climate crisis requires that critical choices be made now that are bold and based on the clearest understanding of how to achieve our goals of preserving the planet and protecting the health of the world’s people,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Climate change provides a crucial opportunity for dialogue between our two nations.”

{mosads}Pelosi and the other lawmakers will be meeting with Chinese government and business leaders to talk about how climate change relates to the economy, she said during a news conference Friday.

Pelosi arrived with the mostly Democratic congressional delegation Sunday. She has yet to make public statements to reporters.

She is traveling with Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). All are members of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, a panel that Pelosi started two years ago to focus on stopping climate change, one of her top priorities.

The trip comes as the House takes up an energy bill that would put new limits on carbon emissions, which are largely responsible for global warming. Pelosi and two her of close allies, Markey and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), shepherded the bill through the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, but three other committees may take up the legislation before it comes up for a vote on the House floor.

Pelosi has tweaked China for its human rights record in the past, meeting with the Dalai Lama and condemning the 1989 government crackdown in Tiananmen Square.  But she has stressed that the purpose of the trip would be to deal with climate change.

Pelosi said that she hopes to find “pockets” of common ground with China before an international climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. She added that both China and India, two countries with fast-growing economies and carbon emissions levels, are crucial to any climate change effort.

“[W]e’re hoping that we’re able to seal the deal by the time we go to Copenhagen,” Pelosi said on Thursday after a meeting with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a strong supporter of a climate change bill in the upper chamber, will also be in China during the Memorial Day recess.

Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, left on Friday and returns mid-week this week. He is scheduled to tour a coal-research facility, a low-carbon emission factory and a wind turbine facility, as well as hold roundtables with U.S. and foreign companies and students and faculty at Peking University. He is also scheduled to meet with Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Li Ke-qiang in Beijing.

Among several hearings on climate change Kerry has held so far this year was a meeting at which former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore testified.

The Senate may considering its version of a climate change bill later this year.

Other lawmakers are using the week-long Memorial Day recess to go on official overseas trips.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) are traveling to Darfur in Sudan and to Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. The senators will try to assess whether officials in Sudan are complying with United Nations resolutions aimed at stemming the ongoing civil war, Isakson said during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing earlier this month.

In each of the African nations, the senators will meet with Peace Corps volunteers and non-governmental organizations and will try to see the progress made as a result of U.S. aid, Corker’s office said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) will be in Normandy, France, to honor fallen World War II veterans on Memorial Day.

“Sixty-five years ago, young American men hailing from big cities, sleepy towns and small farms struggled through Normandy’s churning surf amid a hail of gunfire to secure Europe’s freedom,” Chambliss said in a statement. “Thousands never came back. I am humbled by their sacrifice and honored to remember them.”

— J. Taylor Rushing contributed to this article.