It’s time for Republicans to be recognized as environmental innovators.
Democrats claim to be advocating “next-generation solutions,” but when you look underneath the partisan politics, it is actually Republicans who support a transformative new-age climate agenda. After all, current proposals from the Democrats are not only shortsighted but in part responsible for crises in American energy and supply chains.
Let’s start with the energy crisis. Although the war in Ukraine is the primary cause, Democrats’ misguided energy policies have exacerbated the problem. In their efforts to prioritize clean energy, Democrats stalled both oil and gas drilling in the United States and liquefied natural gas exports to Europe. However, as Russia cut off its natural gas to American allies such as Germany, these nations have reverted back to outdated and unclean coal power. What started out as a radical policy to end reliance on fossil fuels actually backfired to create a coal renaissance that erased the emissions reduction progress the U.S. has made since 2005.
Now, people are paying record prices for gas as energy costs skyrocket. At the recent NATO summit in Madrid, President Joe Biden said the public will have to stomach these higher prices “as long as it takes” to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin out of Eastern Europe. And don’t worry: Democrats have the policy proposals to match their out-of-touch rhetoric.
Their solutions to the gas crisis include presidential shouting matches with oil companies, more gas taxes, and suggesting that people bike or walk to work. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 85% of workers use their car to commute. Suggesting that an electrical lineman in Nebraska or a bricklayer in Oregon give up their personal vehicle to walk to work is about as impractical a climate solution as you can get.
Contrary to the “suck it up” solutions from their colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Republicans in Congress choose to be innovators.
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are leading with their “Securing Cleaner American Energy” agenda. This platform combines pragmatism with transformative clean energy technologies such as hydrogen, hydropower, and nuclear. Instead of blaming oil companies or reverting back to coal, Republicans want to streamline natural gas production to reduce methane emissions and facilitate efficient environmental reviews for new nuclear power plants. This innovative approach both alleviates pressure on families facing this energy crisis and works in the long term to provide sustainable alternatives to address climate change.
On top of high fuel prices, the public is also facing a crisis in the supply chain, with catastrophic delays in the materials that make up our infrastructure. Critical minerals — the building blocks of electric vehicles, solar panels, and smartphones — have been in short supply due to American reliance on China to mine and ship them. Instead of securing mining and processing of these minerals in America, which is far better environmentally, the Biden administration has failed to partner with a Democratic-controlled Congress to pass a single piece of targeted critical mineral legislation and even shut down a copper mine in Arizona.
Only 15 months into his presidency did Biden take marginal action by invoking the Defense Production Act to streamline some critical minerals processing, but by that point, according to the Government Accountability Office, “limited domestic infrastructure and capacity prevents large-scale recovery” of critical mineral supply.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have been chomping at the bit to pass strong climate-conscious legislation promoting American critical mineral production. Bills introduced by Republican Reps. Pete Stauber (MN) and Michael Waltz (FL) use federal grants to foster competition among private business and universities to pioneer next-generation mining technologies and improve domestic manufacturing capacity. Rather than simply shutting down mining, Republicans are proposing new-age solutions to avoid supply chain woes.
In the face of skyrocketing energy prices and an unruly supply chain, our nation requires a balanced federal policy that will secure both our financial and climate future. The U.S. relies on the vitality of our workers and families just as much as the vitality of the ecosystems in which we live. Right now, Republicans have the innovative, transformative solutions to get there. It’s time for Democrats to catch up.
Adam Jackman is a senior at the University of Southern California and president of the American Conservation Coalition chapter in Los Angeles. He is interning this summer with the ACC in Washington, D.C.
