Trump Admin Mulling Withdrawal from Climate Agreement.
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. The Trump administration is considering withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, the world's first comprehensive climate agreement adopted in 2015 by nearly 200 nations. It's our "Earth Matters" segment. Candidate Trump, of course, promised to, quote, "cancel the Paris agreement". But sources tell CNN there's an internal White House debate on whether they should. The Jared Kushner/Ivanka Trump wing wants to stay in the agreement. The Steven Bannon wants to pull out. Here with me for more is CNN's Rene Marsh. And, Rene, what is the U.S. required to do under the agreement, and what happens if the U.S. pulls out?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: So, essentially, this agreement is, many would argue, to save the planet. They want to rid the planet of this carbon pollution in this century. A hundred and thirty-two countries, they have all committed to this Paris agreement, including the United States. The United States has committed to decreasing its carbon emissions by some 28 percent by the year 2025. In order to do that, they are putting things in place or they have put things in place like fuel standards, efficiency standards as well as limits for carbon emissions from coal power plants. But as you know, Jake, we've been reporting on it. The Trump administration has been unraveling a lot of or attempting to unravel a lot of those regulations, and then there's this debate whether to stay or leave that -- the Paris agreement. Well, now, there's a new issue on the table, and that new issue on the table is whether the U.S. would get into some sort of legal trouble if they stayed but they just didn't meet their targets, meaning they didn't reduce the amount of emissions that they said that they would going into the agreement. That is what sources are telling CNN. The White House lawyers are concerned that staying in and not doing what they said they were going to do could present a problem. So, that begs the question, what will they do? Will they leave all together if now they are concerned about the legal problems? We don't know yet because they haven't made the decision and this debate has been going back and forth for quite some time.</s>TAPPER: And, Rene, just a few days ago, the president signed an executive order to expand offshore drilling. Even some Republican members of Congress who represent Eastern coastal states are opposed to this, and now, there's environmental groups suing.</s>MARSH: Right. So, this separate executive order, what it does is reverse Barack Obama's ban on oil and gas drilling both in parts of the Arctic as well as the Atlantic Ocean. And so, now, what Trump wants to do is owe essentially roll this all back, but like you said there's a bipartisan pushback on all of this. And just a few hours ago, we did get word that several environmental groups, they filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over this action. They are essentially challenging Donald Trump's constitutional power to undo President Obama's permanent protection of parts of the Arctic as well as the Atlantic Ocean. So, again, that legal battle is gearing up now all because of this executive order. So, we'll have to wait and see how the Trump administration responds. At last check, they haven't responded to this latest lawsuit.</s>TAPPER: All right. Rene Marsh, thank you so much. Appreciate it. New momentum and optimism as Republicans hope to vote on a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare by tomorrow, but will pre-existing conditions still be fully covered like President Trump promised? Stay with us.