Ahead of tonight’s Slotkin-Rogers debate, separating truth from fiction on climate and clean energy

Lansing, Mich. – Ahead of tonight’s U.S. Senate debate in Grand Rapids between U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin and former congressman Mike Rogers, it’s more important than ever to separate truth from fiction on the climate and clean energy issues facing Michigan. Consider the following:

U.S Rep. Elissa Slotkin has helped bring a clean energy manufacturing boom to Michigan:

• Slotkin cast a key vote in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act, which has bolstered Michigan’s clean energy and advanced manufacturing economy.
• Because of the clean energy plan, more than $26.6 Billion in new clean energy investments have been announced in Michigan.
• These investments are creating over 21,000 jobs, with 18,000, accounting for  more than 80%, in the electric vehicle or battery technology sector, positioning Michigan as a future global leader in advanced automotive manufacturing.
• Michigan is projected to add a total of 167,000 new jobs in the next 10 years because lawmakers like Elissa Slotkin voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act.

Like Donald Trump and his Big Oil benefactors, Mike Rogers is telling countless lies about electric vehicle production. Here are the facts:

• While Rogers-endorser Donald Trump was president, his hostility towards the clean energy industry allowed China to pull ahead in clean energy and EV manufacturing.
• Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says that repealing the country’s clean energy plan “would be a blow to manufacturing. … China would certainly benefit.”
• A nonpartisan think tank found that the MAGA Republican Project 2025 agenda “unwinds the laws that have encouraged onshoring …significantly restricts the build-out of clean energy” and will cause 1.7 million jobs losses while doing $320 billion/year in damage to the U.S. economy.
• Unions and auto companies support the clean energy plan; only Republicans, Big Oil, and China oppose them.
• As the head of the largest U.S. automakers’ trade association has said, “the future is electric.” That future will either continue being built here in America by our workforce or ceded to China by Mike Rogers and  Donald Trump.
• The EV transition will keep American manufacturing jobs. A top exec at GM said, “We’ve done our own analysis at General Motors, and there are other studies that have affirmed that the employee base needed in the future for EV production is very similar to what’s needed for a comparable [internal combustion] vehicle today.”
• China is actively challenging the Biden-Harris clean energy plan with complaints to the World Trade Organization, because they know it will accelerate America’s resurgent EV industry
• U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell noted in a recent opinion column that gutting investments in America’s EV industry will cede the technologies of the future to foreign competitors like China.

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin is a climate champion for Michigan, as all of America is impacted by climate disasters.

• Slotkin called for taking “aggressive steps to mitigate the effects of climate change” and has been a strong supporter of the state’s growing clean energy economy.
• She supported legislation that would help address the worst effects of the climate crisis, such as air and water pollution.
• Slotkin has also sought to hold Big Oil accountable, criticizing OPEC for putting profits first at the expense of Americans’ pocketbooks.

In stark contrast, former congressman Mike Rogers has made serving oil and gas interests a driving force behind his campaign for Senate.

• As a member of the House of Representatives, Rogers repeatedly obstructed efforts to address climate change – he sought to delay caps on carbon pollution levels, voted against mandatory limits on pollution, and voted to block the EPA from updating clean air safeguards.
• Rogers has also repeatedly spread misinformation about Democrats mandating electric vehicles and banning gas-powered engines – claims that have been repeatedly proven to be false.
• He’s a major ally of Big Oil, having taken over $400,000 from oil and gas throughout his career while voting to provide the industry with environmental exceptions and billions in tax breaks and to make it easier for the industry to skirt public health laws.
• Rogers has pushed for expanding oil drilling, and once claimed oil could be drilled “in an environmentally-friendly way.”

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