newYou can now listen to Fox News articles.
The start of hurricane season this week is a stark reminder to those worried about the national debt and the American economy that climate change is no longer just an environmental, health or social issue. It is now a serious economic problem.
In the past five years alone, climate-related disasters have cost the economy more than $612 billion, according to NOAA. Record wildfires in the West. Record flooding in the heart of our country. An unprecedented Texas freeze will cause billions of dollars in damages that Texans will pay for over the next 30 years. And there have been so many hurricanes in the East that meteorologists have run out of names for them.
If there’s a silver lining to all of this, it’s that lawmakers will spring into action once something goes wrong. The clean energy investments that Congress passed last year will help reduce the carbon footprint that fuels extreme weather and sucks money out of taxpayers’ pockets with every disaster.
But even before we begin to see the fruits of their labor, these same policies are driving private industry investment to levels not seen for generations or even before.
Thousands of Florida residents continue to recover from Hurricane Ian as new storm season begins
In just nine months after Congress passed the Inflation Control Act (IRA), companies have announced nearly 200 major clean energy projects, including electric vehicles and battery factories. Green hydrogen refinery. Solar and wind farms, new power lines, energy efficiency projects, and more, as tracked by E2, the bipartisan business group I run. Together, these projects involve $80 billion in investment and more than 60,000 high-income jobs.
What is the only thing that can stop this new American economic boom?
It’s not hurricanes and wildfires, freezes and floods.
It’s politics.
Fortunately, House Republican leaders in Washington have wisely dropped false threats to abolish the IRA or force the country to default on its fiscal debt as part of the debt ceiling deal. And in Texas, now a national leader in renewable energy, the Republican Party’s most radical attempt to block renewable energy has failed due to the spread of sanity.
North Carolina Researchers Predict 2023 Hurricane Season
Certainly, Republicans don’t really want to undermine all this economic growth and deprive the country’s young people and other voters of the new career opportunities.
The only reason Republican leadership allows this in the first place is because the more radical members of the party are demanding it just to earn political points against the Democrats.
We shouldn’t bet on economic growth and America’s competitiveness just to score political points. And we should never allow it to happen again.
Doing so risks tearing the rug from under companies like Ford, GM, Berkshire Hathaway, First Solar and many others. The companies are expanding their operations to meet the expected demand for clean energy and electric vehicles turbocharged by the IRA, but that will be done before they can begin their operations. .
That would trip America up in the global race for the $23 trillion global clean energy market. It will give China, Europe and other international competitors an even better position in a race where we are already behind. And it will again set back efforts to mitigate the economic impact of climate change.
This is the craziest part. Attempts by Congressional Republicans to curtail federal investment in climate change and clean energy will hurt Republicans at home the most.
Biden administration ignores indigenous demands, bans oil drilling near indigenous settlements for 20 years
Most of the clean energy and transportation projects announced since the IRA passed are in the red.
So far, South Carolina has led with at least 16 large-scale projects, followed by Georgia with 14, and states such as Texas and Tennessee are not far behind, according to E2 research. .
Volkswagen plans to revive production of the iconic Scout SUV and truck at a South Carolina plant owned by Rep. Joe Wilson.
The Western Hemisphere’s largest solar panel plant is being built by Qcells in Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green’s Georgia District.
One of the nation’s largest green hydrogen projects is underway in Utah, the home state of Conservative Climate Congressman John Curtis.
One of the largest carbon removal projects is planned in solar-rich California. By none other than Chairman McCarthy.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINIONS NEWSLETTER
Republican governors, mayors and business leaders outside of Washington, D.C.’s political bubble have welcomed these investments and jobs that are turning the tide and bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. celebrate the fact that They need more rational Republicans in Congress to join them.
They must remember that voters in their home countries are more concerned with jobs, the economy, America’s competitiveness, and preventing the next costly disaster than political strife.
They need to denounce short-sighted political attacks on working clean energy policies and reject attempts to abolish and undermine them in the future.
They need to put the state’s economy and opportunities ahead of Washington’s politics.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Hurricane season reminds us that no time is wasted.
Together, we need to keep moving our country forward, not just bickering and playing politics until the next costly disaster.
