It’s the eve of the Ides of March and St. Patrick’s Day is on Monday. I’m not sure what all this means except the greening of the Chicago River reminds me of the time in college that my roommate and I talked a bartender into giving us a pitcher of beer in exchange for our bottle of green food coloring, which they then poured into everyone’s beers for the evening.
Note: Due to a scheduling snafu, there was no episode of the EcoRight Speaks this week but we will be back next week with Ben Evans of the US Green Building Council, so stay tuned!
GOP support for not gutting IRA grows:
Building on the letter 18 GOP House members sent to Speak of the House Mike Johnson in November 2024 asking him not to gut the Inflation Reduction Act, a new letter to Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith has emerged, signed by 21 lawmakers.
“We request that any proposed changes to the tax code be conducted in a targeted and pragmatic fashion that promotes conference priorities without undoing current and future private sector investments which will continue to increase domestic manufacturing, promote energy innovation, and keep utility costs down,” the letter reads.
“We need the projects that are currently under development to be brought online so we can continue the President’s ‘America First’ agenda,” said Rep. Andrew Garbarino, who spearheaded last year’s letter too. “[Clean energy credits] are helping the president accomplish what he said he wanted to do in his campaign, and that was to make America an energy dominant country.”
“America cannot afford to turn a blind eye to how existing clean energy tax credits are actively helping our Armed Forces, small businesses, and everyday families,” Rep. Jen Kiggans from Virginia said in a statement. “I am proud to stand with my colleagues to advocate for an all-of-the-above approach that protects these critical tax credits and spurs innovation.”
Speaker Johnson said that his approach to the tax credits would be “somewhere between a scalpel and a sledgehammer.”
Related…
Wisdom from Bob:
This week, Bob Inglis was published on the C-Change Conversations blog with this timely post, Clean energy policies benefit everyone: just ask red states.
“Conservatives across the U.S. understand that clean energy holds great economic promise and is already delivering benefits. Just look at the top three wind states in 2023 – Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma. These ‘red states’ saw an opportunity and they took it,” Bob writes. “Realizing they have a plentiful supply of wind, they took advantage of the prevailing winds in the form of federal policies meant to incentivize tapping into this God-given resource. The wind industry in the U.S. has delivered nearly $330 billion of investment in the last 20 years ($10 billion in new projects in 2023) and employs 131,000 Americans (plus 300,000 adjacent jobs).”
For more, follow the link to their website!
Pentagon dismisses link between national security and climate change:
In an abrupt reversal of practice dating back over a decade, the Department of Defense is dismissing the connection between climate change and national security, initially brought to attention by a slate of retired flag officers who spanned the U.S. Armed Forces.
“The @DeptofDefense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting,” Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X this week.
The national and intelligence community has long recognized climate change as a threat multiplier, and a 2018 Pentagon study found that nearly half of all U.S. military sites were threatened by weather linked to climate change. “To train, fight, and win in an increasingly complex threat environment, we must consider the effects of extreme weather and climate change at every level of the enterprise,” the report found.
EVENT RECAP: The White House Effect
I was honored to be invited to Concord, New Hampshire for a special advanced screening of The White House Effect, a film depicting the political battle in President George H.W. Bush’s administration. The title comes from a quote then-Vice President Bush said on the campaign trail: “Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect forget about the ‘White House effect,'” he said in 1988. “As president, I intend to do something about it.”
After the event, I participated in a panel discussion on the film. Sponsored by New Hampshire LCV and Climate Action NH, the event was attended by nearly 100 people (including one of my college roommates and a very special republicEn.org member, Matt Cahillane). Thanks to Rob Werner for making the evening happen!
You can find future screenings here (unfortunately, the DC screening next week is sold out).
And that’s it for me! See you next week!