Passing an infrastructure bill to deal with actual infrastructure should be easy, right? But, Democrats apparently think everything is infrastructure, and want their climate cult provisions included
Lawmakers divided over climate change proposals in infrastructure package
A group of bipartisan senators are attempting to hammer out an infrastructure agreement after talks between Senate Republicans and the White House collapsed earlier this week — but some progressives are warning against an infrastructure package without climate change provisions.
“No climate, no deal,” tweeted Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) on Thursday.
Rep. Petter Meijer (R., Mich.) is part of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which proposed its own infrastructure framework on Wednesday, after talks broke down. In an interview with Yahoo Finance Live, Meijer warned against including “unrelated priorities” in an infrastructure bill, while noting the bipartisan framework includes money for electric cars and buses.
“To an extent, you can link everything together if you’re creative enough with your rhetoric,” said Meijer. “We will be pouring concrete as part of this infrastructure plan — we should be focused on what that is, and not trying to just stretch these definitions past anything a dictionary might find even remotely plausible.”
If they want infrastructure, do just that, not adding all sorts of other stuff. That’s how you end up with unintended consequences, as mentioned in the previous post. If they want a climate crisis scam bill, put one up for a vote. Oh, right, every single Democrat voted “present” on the Green New Deal a few years ago. Including Markey, who was the Senate sponsor.
Democratic lawmakers have argued the United States must focus on fighting climate change and transitioning to clean energy as it overhauls the nation’s infrastructure. They make the case the two issues can’t be separated. Republicans make the case that an infrastructure package should largely be focused on traditional, physical projects and expanding broadband.
They can argue all they want: do the citizens really want this stuff? Perhaps many do in theory, but, in practice, that is something vastly different. Especially when Democrats refuse to practice what they preach themselves.
“To me, that what draws the line is what supports and underpins our economy and our functioning as a country,” said Meijer.
“I do not like omnibus efforts that try to wrap everything together and make it harder to focus on how they’re actually going to be impactful,” he added. “I believe that climate change is a real and pressing threat to this country.”
Republicans would be well served to simply start calling out elected Democrats for refusing to make massive changes in their own lives. Take a page from the Democrats in making this personal. Further, start adding amendments and language that would start hitting the Congress with lots of a measures, like requiring them to take the train instead of fossil fueled flights. No funding for traveling by fossil fueled vehicle. And so much more.
