Senate Climate "Solutions" Caucus Awash In Fossil Fuel Money; $500k+ For Dems, $9 Million For GOP
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RL Miller, political director of Climate Hawks Vote, a grassroots climate super PAC, calls bipartisanship in the caucus “a joke.” “Or, [it] would be a joke if the stakes weren’t so high and if the planet weren’t in danger,” Miller told Truthout. For the Republicans, it’s all optics. “The only reason that these Republicans are at all interested in this, is that they see government, and social pressure, moving people towards climate action.” Voters are increasingly demanding that their representatives make moves on climate, and savvy Republicans are picking up on that demand. Unfortunately for them, bipartisanship on climate seems to be a weak draw. The House Climate Solutions Caucus, formed in 2016, was similarly structured to the new Senate version: one for one of each party. Following the midterm elections just two years after its founding, half of the Republicans in the caucus were either voted out or retired, leading Grist to declare that “the era of bipartisanship on climate is dead.”
But the biggest threat to any progress for the caucus isn’t necessarily the Republicans on it. The biggest threat may be the amount of fossil fuel money accepted by members on both sides of the aisle. Only one member so far has signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge: Colorado’s Michael Bennet, a Democratic presidential candidate, non-supporter of the Green New Deal, and recipient of over $320,000 worth of oil and gas money in his time in Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The other three Democrats in the caucus – Jeanne Shaheen, Angus King and Coons — have received over $200,000 combined. Meanwhile, the Republican members of the caucus have received over $9.5 million combined, $7 million of which went to Romney alone.
“Something that we’ve seen from the fossil fuel industry and other abusive industries is that inaction is what big polluter money can buy,” says Taylor Billings, press secretary for Corporate Accountability’s climate campaign. This dirty money, she says, “results in presenting this caucus as a viable solution to the climate crisis when, in reality, it seems to be anything but.”
A starting point for bipartisan legislation would be some sort of carbon fee — an idea legislators on both sides of the aisle have been bouncing around for a while –which environmental experts consider to be a bare minimum requirement for the path to net-zero emissions. Considering all of the members of the caucus have to agree on any policy they write, however, even a carbon fee will likely be an uphill battle. Rubio derides the idea of a carbon tax and conflates it with the Green New Deal in a recent op-ed for USA Today; Murkowski has refused to endorse a carbon tax; and Graham has supported one in the past, but reneged on that view earlier this year. Even Braun says that he doesn’t want a carbon fee to be a focus of the caucus.
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https://truthout.org/articles/new-senate-climate-caucus-is-filled-with-climate-deniers-and-climate-delayers/
