The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a reconciliation bill that would gut social safety net programs and roll back policies investing in building out a clean economy, all to fund tax cuts that primarily benefit the ultra-wealthy and boost fossil fuel use.
Below is a statement by Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
“The House has done its level best to engineer an energy crisis, deliberately sidelining the clean energy industry at the exact moment we need it most. This bill would undermine hundreds of billions of dollars of clean energy investments and tens of thousands of new jobs, spike monthly energy bills, and increase climate pollution and its attendant impacts. That means everyday people will bear even more costs actively and knowingly forced upon them by their government, which is now utterly beholden to billionaires and fossil fuel interests.
“In addition to axing clean vehicle tax credits, the bill also repeals vehicle pollution standards, which would unleash 7 billion metric tons of entirely avoidable global warming pollution. The standards, if kept in place, will save drivers $6,000 in fuel and maintenance costs over the lifetime of their vehicles.
“Meanwhile, while the bill slashes funding for programs that help people, including SNAP and Medicaid, it sinks $25 billion into an unrealistic and profoundly destabilizing space-based anti-missile system that could yield billions of dollars in contracts for Elon Musk. The Golden Dome isn’t the only Pentagon boondoggle in this bill. Taxpayer money also would be wasted on the troubled, behind-schedule and very over-budget Sentinel land-based ballistic missile program, which UCS recommends canceling.
“The bill also attempts to create a backdoor for undoing federal safeguards protecting the health and well-being of everyday people through a regulatory-repeal slush fund for the Office of Managment and Budget director and architect of Project 2025 Russell Vought.
“The Senate must reject this legislation.”