Is this the agenda where Biden took a long fossil fueled flight (with backup jumbo jet and fighter jet protection) to Albuquerque, then a big fossil fueled convoy to his official speech (designed to reduce his cost for what is a campaign trip), then a fossil fueled convoy to his DNC speech, then back to the plane? Then on to San Diego, repeating all the use of fossil fuels? Then to Chicago today? While trying to force you to reduce your use of fossil fuels?
What’s at stake for Biden’s climate agenda in the midterms
If Republicans take control of the House, Senate, or both in the midterms, they have every incentive to turn the rollout of Democrats’ singular achievements into a political disaster. At stake is $370 billion in incentives for electric vehicles, electric appliances, clean energy, and pollution reduction, passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act this summer on a party-line vote.
Elections have consequences. So we’ve been told
Republicans can’t scrap any part of the law as long as President Joe Biden remains in office; any attempt would face a presidential veto, even if it managed to pass the Senate filibuster threshold. What Republicans can do is gum up the works of the bill’s massive climate programs. In the majority, they would have additional powers to call in agency officials for hearings and issue subpoenas — all tools that could be used to disrupt the implementation of both the IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure law passed a year ago.
Never ignore the power of the Republican beltway folks to get squishy and do nothing.
Some of this should sound familiar. Twelve years ago, Republicans swept the House in the midterms and applied the same strategy to the stimulus law meant to help recovery from the late-2000s Great Recession. The most memorable strategy was the GOP’s attack over Solyndra, a company that went bankrupt two years after the Department of Energy provided it $535 million in loan guarantees.
Strategy? This is real. It happened. And it left a huge environmental mess.
But climate spending makes up the majority of the law and will be under scrutiny as well.
So, the Inflation Reduction Act isn’t about inflation reduction?
The organization was even more frank about its priorities at a conference with industry leaders in Minneapolis in September. A recording from the event (first reported by the New York Times) revealed the group’s plans to work with House Republicans to ramp up oversight.
The recording, also reviewed by Vox, shows AGA’s top lobbyist Allison Cunningham warning about the impact of the law’s $2.8 billion environmental justice block grants to community-based nonprofits focused on cutting environmental pollution. “We’re concerned that this can be used or applied to support gas ban efforts at community levels,” said Cunningham. “And again, there’s a lot of different opportunities for community groups or other kinds of groups who haven’t been as skilled as long to be eligible for grants, maybe not proper training.” Another area Cunningham warns about is funding that “includes language on reducing indoor toxins and indoor air pollution.”
This suggests that some of the programs Republicans plan to target will be the law’s funding helping communities, particularly low-income ones, cut their pollution. These kinds of programs pose a threat to gas utilities because those utilities make their profits from putting more pipes in the ground to connect gas to new buildings. Any effort to stop that growth of a captive gas customer base undermines the companies’ future.
All the IRA does is increase the cost of energy for the poor, making them even more energy deficient, making them more vulnerable to being dependent on government
Another tactic the GOP is considering, according to the Washington Post, is using the debt limit and government shutdown to make cuts to clean energy and climate spending. While agencies are funded through mid-December, Republicans could seek budget cuts in the future that slow down work even further.
Yeah, but, the GOP usually caves. And, weirdly, few are investing in any of this stuff unless government is giving them big handouts.
Read: Bummer: A GOP Wave Will Mess With Brandon’s Climate (scam) Agenda »
U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday vowed to “free” Iran, and said that demonstrators working against the country’s government would soon succeed in freeing themselves.
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MSNBC presidential historian Michael Beschloss said Wednesday on “All In” said that if Republicans take the majorities in Congress, American democracy will end, and “our children” will be jailed and killed by a “brutal authoritarian system.”
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President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a stark warning to Americans that the future of the nation’s democracy could rest on next week’s midterm elections, an urgent appeal coming six days before final ballots are cast in a contest the president framed in nearly existential terms.
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Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday will announce new steps the Biden administration is taking to help lower 
