White House Calls Sen. Whitehouse a 'Scam Victim' After State Dept. Declines to Back COP30 Trip

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said the State Department declined to support or credential his trip to the COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil, prompting sharp criticism from the White House and a broader partisan dispute over U.S. climate engagement.

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers dismissed the senator’s complaint, saying,

“Sadly, Senator Whitehouse has fallen victim to the biggest scam of the century: the Green New Scam. He can choose to spend his own time and money attending this radical ‘climate’ conference, but the administration will not waste taxpayer dollars.”

Whitehouse, appearing at a news conference on the House side of the Capitol with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, held up his COP30 badge and noted it identified him as a delegate from the Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), not as a representative of the United States. He said that because the State Department under Secretary Marco Rubio did not assist with travel or credentials, he relied on a House energy and environment coalition to arrange his participation.

“For the first time in history that I'm aware of, the State Department refused to support or facilitate my travel or my credentialing. My credentials don't say United States of America,” Whitehouse said, adding that it is customary for the executive branch to help facilitate congressional delegations.

Whitehouse argued that the Trump administration’s absence at COP30 — which also drew attendees such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom — signaled a failure of U.S. leadership on climate. On the conference floor he urged stronger market-based measures, including carbon pricing, and defended international tools such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as critical to achieving climate goals.

Jeffries echoed those concerns, saying the administration’s stance ceded global leadership on climate to strategic rivals and left American interests behind.

Critics pushed back strongly. Daniel Turner, founder of the advocacy group Power The Future, accused Whitehouse of hypocrisy and of treating the trip like a vacation amid other national crises. Turner also criticized China’s role in renewable manufacturing and used sharply personal language in his remarks about the senator.

The article recalled an earlier controversy in 2021 when Whitehouse declined to apologize for his family’s membership at a Newport, R.I., club that faced allegations of discriminatory practices; Whitehouse said he regretted that the club’s leadership had not resolved the issue.

In a statement defending his presence in Belém, Whitehouse said Republican policies have intentionally raised costs for American families to benefit fossil fuel donors and that he went to COP30 to rally allies to protect climate measures such as CBAM. “There is no pathway to climate safety without CBAM, and we must protect that pathway at all costs,” he said.

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment by press time.