A group of House lawmakers is heading overseas for climate talks the White House is skipping.
House Democrats are traveling to a United Nations climate summit in Turkey that President Donald Trump is not attending, and a green group is helping cover the cost. Nineteen House members are due in Antalya from November 14 to 16 for the summit, known as COP31, the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Institute said in a media advisory.
Politico reported in October that the institute was giving the lawmakers financial help to make the trip. The Guardian reported Monday that the lawmakers, all Democrats, had been denied the State Department assistance congressional travelers normally receive and were relying on philanthropic funding to attend.
"I'm glad we found a way to get there, but it is insane," Democratic Illinois Rep. Sean Casten, a vice chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, told The Guardian. "We have a lot of rebuilding to do. It hinges on Congress to maintain diplomatic continuities at COP and minimize the damage until adults are back in the White House."
Casten, a former environmental entrepreneur, is now a candidate to become chair of the House Financial Services Committee and is challenging the panel's top Democrat, California Rep. Maxine Waters. The trip comes days after Democrats won control of the House and the Senate in the November 3 midterm elections, The Guardian reported.
Casten acknowledged that other countries have watched American climate commitments swing back and forth. "We go in with a fair amount of humility as important as we are, the U.S. has been an extremely unreliable partner on climate," he said. "But going to COP on the heels of these results feels a lot better. It can be a much more positive process now."
The SEEC Institute did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's questions about travel and funding. Steve Milloy, a senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, said his group wants to know who is bankrolling the outside organizations and lawmakers heading to the summit, foreign donors in particular.
"COP31 is against the policy and national security interests of the U.S.," Milloy said in a statement to the outlet. He also said E&E Legal "will not be able to obtain records about this travel and activity because neither the private groups nor Congress is subject to the Freedom of Information Act."
Karly Matthews, vice president of communications for the American Conservation Coalition, a conservative environmental group, said American leaders should use the summit to make the case for U.S. energy and industry. "On the world stage at COP31, our leaders should champion the fact that American energy and manufacturing are cleaner," Matthews said in a statement to the outlet.
"Our environmental challenges are real, but so is the opportunity for robust American leadership," she said. Craig Rucker, president of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a conservative group with a team at the summit, said Americans should view the delegation's trip skeptically.
"Americans should see the Democratic congressional delegation's presence at this summit for what it is: political theater that is disconnected from both the recent election and the real-world costs of the agenda being promoted here," Rucker said in a statement to the outlet. "The travel and costs associated with this summit reveal priorities that are more about elite convening than about the urgency or practicality of the climate agenda being advanced," he said.
Amazon is on the agenda. The delegation's public schedule for November 14 lists a conversation "with Amazon leadership and congressional participants" on clean energy policy, the institute's website shows, and a November 16 session titled "Accelerating Decarbonization to Drive Down Global Demand for Oil and Gas."
In June, the institute paid for five House Democrats, Casten included, to travel to France and Belgium, a post-travel disclosure that Democratic North Carolina Rep. Deborah Ross filed with the House clerk shows. Their transportation ran anywhere from $2,491 to $4,764 apiece, and they flew commercial, the filing says.
Lawmakers need written approval from the House Ethics Committee before they go on a privately sponsored trip, the committee says. After the trip, they have 15 days to report the costs to the clerk, according to the House's post-travel disclosure form.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is leading a delegation of his own, his office announced Tuesday. His wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is part of the group, along with Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Public Utilities Commission President John Reynolds and Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez, among others.
The governor's Tuesday release did not say how the delegation would travel or who is paying. Newsom's office did not respond to the outlet's questions about the trip.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, the Biden-era climate envoy, was also at the summit, Legal Planet, an environmental law blog, reported Wednesday. Kerry spoke at a plenary session in Antalya and said that moving the world off fossil fuels "is the prime discussion that we need to engage in" during a 2028 review of global climate policy, Climate Home News reported.
A representative for Kerry did not respond to the outlet's request for comment. A White House official confirmed to The Guardian that the Trump administration would not be sending anyone.
"This summit rejects reality by failing to acknowledge that extremist climate policies are destroying countries around the world," the official said. Trump told world leaders at the United Nations in September 2025 that climate change was "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world," The Guardian reported.
The State Department said in an email to NPR that the United States is not sending a delegation, and that it skipped last year's summit in Brazil as well. Because Trump moved to withdraw the country from the U.N. climate framework, COP31 will be the last of these summits with the United States as an official party, The Guardian reported.
The SEEC Institute started in 2024. Its website says that it connects "congressional leaders with the private sector, civil society, advocates, academics, and other experts" on climate and energy policy, and that the House caucus it was set up to complement has more than 100 members.
Max Frankel, the institute's executive director, said the delegation would focus on climate security, resilience, electrification and affordability, Politico reported in October. The advisory said the delegation will hold a press conference November 16 and that members "will return with new relationships and firsthand insights they can turn into congressional priorities."
The institute has yet to name the 19 members. Its advisory said the names and public events would come out by press release once the delegation gets to Antalya.
Politico reported in October that the Conservative Climate Foundation planned to bring two Republican members of Congress. By Monday, though, The Guardian was reporting that every U.S. lawmaker arriving at the summit was a Democrat.
Oxfam, an anti-poverty advocacy group, said in a Thursday release that its review of Polluterjet tracking data found 87 private jets had touched down at Antalya Airport since November 7. The group did not tie any of the flights to a U.S. official or lawmaker and said not all of the passengers were necessarily attending the summit.
The talks wrap up November 20. Negotiators from close to 200 countries are taking part, The Associated Press reported.
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