ICYMI: Hypocritical Republican Representative Is Taking Advantage of President’s Climate Plan While Working to Roll it Back
Read the piece HERE
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This morning, Maxine Joselow with the Washington Post reported that Republican Representative John Curtis of Utah took advantage of the game-changing tax credits in President Biden’s climate plan to make energy efficient upgrades to his home, installing rooftop solar and a heat pump. Representative Curtis is benefitting directly from the Inflation Reduction Act, but he and his party continue to fight to strip the historic climate bill in debt ceiling negotiations, a move that would raise prices for families. The investments in President Biden’s climate plan have benefitted Republican-held districts the most, with money and jobs flowing to red districts even as GOP members turn their backs on their constituents.
Key excerpts below:
Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) has used federal clean-energy tax credits to buy 30 rooftop solar panels and a geothermal heat pump for his home in Provo, Utah. […]
Climate activists slammed Curtis for voting to scrap credits that he himself claimed.
Curtis “knows that these are good tax credits that he should be taking advantage of, and yet he’s voting against them to help [House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy hold the economy hostage,” Jamal Raad, co-founder and senior adviser of Evergreen Action, told The Climate 202.
The League of Conservation Voters and Climate Power recently released ads attacking Republicans for supporting the debt ceiling bill even though the climate law has spurred jobs and investments in their districts, as we reported yesterday.
“All I can think is, ‘This is going to make a really good ad,’” Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, said of Curtis’s climate-friendly home.
Conservative environmental groups defended Curtis, saying the Republican has pushed his party to embrace climate policies — just not the policies popular on the left.
“Conservatives like John Curtis actually are really pro-clean energy when it’s applicable to their lives,” said Benji Backer, president and founder of the American Conservation Coalition. “And it’s really something that is favorable among Republicans and conservatives when you take the politics out of it. The problem with the IRA is that it was so political.”
Backer said he thinks more Republicans would have voted for the Inflation Reduction Act if its price tag had been lower and if Democrats hadn’t stuffed it with liberal priorities unrelated to climate change, such as provisions to lower prescription drug prices.
Heather Reams, president of the right-leaning Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, agreed. She also predicted that the repeal of the tax credits wouldn’t be part of any final deal to raise the debt ceiling, given strong resistance from the White House and concerns from some Republicans about the effects on their constituents.
“The more these tax credits become ingrained in our society and people start seeing the benefits,” Reams said, “the more they’ll be harder and harder to roll back.”
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