After releasing a strategy that focuses on achieving energy independence through fossil fuel production, innovation in nuclear energy and other renewable forms of energy, and tree planting, a group of House Republicans presented their broad approach to climate change and the energy dilemma.
At the American Conservation Coalition Summit, Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., told a group of young conservative climate activists that while the GOP needs to do more to associate itself with environmental stewardship and clean energy solutions, Democrats’ overly burdensome regulatory approach that tries to “force the future” and “pretend that rhetoric can be applied to the real world” isn’t working.
After unveiling their energy and climate plan last week, a group of Republicans came to speak with young right-leaning climate activists.
The GOP Climate Task Force, led by Rep. Garrett Graves, R-La., announced an official climate plan ahead of the midterm elections, one that would strive to reduce climate change while cutting gas costs, which are now hovering around $5 per gallon.
Republicans at the meeting agreed that the GOP needs to strike a balance between appealing to environmentally sensitive young people and suburban right-leaning voters while also cutting sky-high energy prices.
Increased domestic fossil fuel production, which Republicans assured DailyMail.com on Friday that the US can produce in a ‘cleaner’ and’more environmentally friendly’ manner than other nations, as well as increased investment in hydropower and technologies such as wind, solar, hydrogen, and carbon capture are all part of the plan. The plan is lacking in figures and does not include any greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., leader of the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the measure “unserious” as a climate solution, saying it amounts to “nothing more than subsidies to oil firms.”
However, Meijer stated that embracing sustainable energy would be a ‘transition,’ and that the United States needs a more comprehensive approach than the Democrats were proposing.
‘Some form of on-demand energy production will always be required… natural gas and nuclear,’ he said.
In an interview with DailyMail.com, Meijer stated that nuclear energy and solar panel production could not be’spun up’ quickly enough to meet the country’s energy needs; instead, the US would need to expand its natural gas facilities and export capabilities.
‘You see where inflation is, where gas prices are, I mean the number one thing is what can we do to drive that down and that’s American energy independence,’ Meijer said, noting that the crisis was underscored by Russian President Vladimir Putin using energy as a ‘weapon,’ knowing Europe is dependent on his supply even as he wages war on Ukraine.
Meijer also refuted the Biden administration’s claim that oil and gas companies have the drilling licenses they need but aren’t acting to pump more oil, arguing that such companies haven’t been able to get the permits they need.
‘To be very clear federal policies are not limiting the supplies of oil and gas,’ former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said while the Biden administration was holding up new oil and gas leases on federal land.
‘Yeah but the Biden administration is just denying the permits to actually build and take advantage of them so there’s a rhetorical shell game that they’ve been engaged in,’ he said. ‘It’s incredibly disingenuous. It reminds me of the early stages of inflation where they said ‘oh it’s only transitory.’
‘It’ll take a while for a lot of those rhetorical excuses to wear very thin and be exposed for just the fig leaf that they are and so I think hopefully that aligns pretty well with where we end up in the majority and that timing,’ he said.
‘I’ve been to some of the oil and gas fields in Pennsylvania and Texas, Ohio. Yes some of those leases are available to them but there’s still a lot of hurdles in front of them,’ he told DailyMail.com, noting that they often lacked the permitting to build pipelines.
The two Republican legislators had differing views on the Biden administration’s decision this week to reduce tariffs on solar panels from China in order to boost green energy production, a move that some Republicans have criticized owing to human rights and labor issues in the country.
While Meijer believes the tariffs should have been dropped sooner, Newhouse prefers to see panels made in the United States.
‘For a person who’s been saying we need to get more renewables out there, and then you have a 26 percent tariff on the front end, that Biden continued to defend the tariff, it’s very much at odds with everything else he’s been saying,’ says one observer.
Biden’s decision to keep so many Trump-era tariffs in place, according to Meijer, was ‘ironic.’
‘I’ve always thought it was comical how he has maintained, I believe, every single tariff.’ I believe it is critical to take a step back and analyze those that were designed for short-term tactical bargaining goals. Have they been successful? ‘Have they sparked the domestic manufacturing that they were supposed to, or have they simply raised the price?’
Lifting the tariffs, according to Newhouse, would only make the US more reliant on foreign energy sources. ‘I’d like to see us become less reliant on foreign sources for some of the things that would propel us toward a clean energy future,’ he said.
Meijer observed that Congress would be losing over 1,000 years of experience when the next session began, a moment he hoped would usher in a new era of members willing to collaborate on climate and energy solutions.
‘I’m glad we’re past the days when a senator would go to his freezer to get a snowball,’ Meijer said, referring to Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe’s infamous 2015 stunt in which he brought a snowball to the Senate floor to prove climate change isn’t real.
Meijer also went after Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, who said this week that she didn’t have to worry about high gas prices because she drove her electric car from Michigan to Washington, D.C.
‘That may be true, and I’m a big fan of electric vehicles, but that’s a lot to ask of people,’ he said, noting that their high cost – around $65,000 on average – is more than their home state’s median yearly salary.
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington, told DailyMail.com that Republicans’ first order of business on energy issues would be’reversing some of the policy decisions that have truly put obstacles in front of the American energy industry over the last year and a half.’
‘We literally have a lot of the solutions we need to cut prices, make energy more available, and more affordable right under our feet,’ Newhouse added. ‘Whether people like it or not, we still use fossil fuels to a great extent and will continue to do so for some time as we transition [to renewable energy].’
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, addressed the stage to blame nuclear energy’s public relations woes on “fringe environmental groups.”
‘The primary opponents are these fringe environmental groups that have made wind and solar power into gods.’
‘They’ll discuss how hazardous the garbage is.’ They’ll talk about the calamities; after all, no one in America has perished as a result of nuclear power; people simply aren’t aware of these issues,’ he continued.
Since 1990, nuclear power plants, a clean form of energy notorious for its lethal but infrequent repercussions in disasters like Chernobyl, have accounted for roughly 20% of the US electricity source.
Former engineer and forester Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., addressed the stage to argue that trees are the key to combating climate change.
‘Trees are not only a component of the solution… they’re the most important element of the solution,’ he said, adding that once they’re planted, they’ll begin reproducing ‘the old-fashioned manner.’
He cited the Trillion Trees Act, a bipartisan bill he presented that would elevate the United States to the forefront of the Trillion Trees program globally. According to the House Natural Resources Committee, studies estimate that planting 1 trillion trees around the world would absorb 205 gigatons of carbon, or about two-thirds of all man-made emissions in the atmosphere.