In all, 235 members in the house voted for the repeal, with 188 voting to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules to control emissions from power plants, however the votes are largely symbolic, however, because US president Barack Obama plans to veto the bills.

Because the vote was called using a so-called resolution of disapproval it was able to pass using a slim majority, instead of the usual 60-vote majority required.

The vote, largely along partisan lines in the two-party dominated house, is intended to send a message that the majority of US lawmakers may not agree with any deal emerging from the COP 21 talks in Paris.

The US House of Representatives came just two weeks after the Republican-dominated Senate approved similar repeal measures.

A report from advocacy group Maplight recently concluded that US senators who reject human-caused climate received, on average, seven times as much money from oil and gas interests than other senators.

Introduced in August, the clean power regulations set CO2 limits from power plants in a bid to cut CO2 emissions from the power sector – which accounts for one-third of US carbon dioxide emissions – by 30% from 2005 levels by 2025.

Republicans, and some Democrats, have complained that any deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions will drive up energy prices and cost jobs.

Outside Congress, a number of states, industry groups, and companies are asking the courts to allow them to continue to pollute without restriction.

The US Chamber of Commerce has complained that the rules are poorly designed.

The White House has said it will veto the congressional measures, saying in a statement that they threaten “the health and economic welfare of future generations by blocking important standards to reduce carbon pollution from the power sector that take a flexible, common sense approach to addressing carbon pollution.”

Democrats accused the Republicans of ignoring the warnings of climate scientists, and offering no constructive alternative to reduce emissions.

Republican lawmakers claimed that they aren’t denying climate science, but are fighting back against the Obama administration’s “misplaced focus on climate change”, because – like gun control laws to deal with the 1052 mass shootings in the past 1066 days – it is not an urgent issue.

But Obama’s administration is not a darling of the environmental movement either. It continues to face protests over allowing leasing of parcels of public land to oil and gas companies.

The next leasing auction is expected to be held on December 10 and will see some 500 acres in Arkansas and Michigan up for grabs.

Critics of the leasing say it contradicts Obama’s broader efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, including the clean power plan.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has maintained that supporting US oil and gas development is part of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, one that allows for domestic fuel production while expanding the use of wind and solar power, electric vehicles, energy-efficient buildings and other clean energy technologies.

In fiscal year 2014, drilling and mining activities generated more than $US13 billion in revenues for the government, according to Interior Department data.

The agency has leased around 35 million acres of public land for oil and gas development in particular, just over 5% of the 650 million acres of federally owned land, and merely a sliver of the 1.7 billion acres of federal waters.

But the leases could be on borrowed time.

Democratic senators, including 2016 presidential hopeful senator Bernie Sanders, are aiming to stop Bureau of Land Management auctions altogether, and last month introduced a bill that would prohibit all new oil and gas drilling and coal mining on federal lands and waters, including near the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico and in Arctic waters.

The bill is unlikely to get any Republican support.

Activists are planning to protest the auction, as they have in recent months in Colorado, Alaska and Wyoming.

The threat of protests at a November auction in Salt Lake City forced federal officials to postpone the event, although the bureau said it still plans to sell rights to drill 39 parcels covering nearly 38,000 acres of public land.

The protests come at a time when the global campaign for divestment from the gas, oil and coal companies passed a new milestone, with more than 500 institutions representing over $US3.4 trillion in assets having at least a partial commitment to divest from fossil fuels.

Last week, the French National Assembly adopted a resolution encouraging companies and local authorities not to invest in fossil fuels, and 19 French cities have endorsed divestment.