US House Passes Polluters Over People Act
The U.S. House last week approved its pro-polluter leadership’s stated top priority legislation, a package of energy policy changes written to benefit the fossil fuel industry at the expense of clean air, renewable energy, public lands, and environmental justice. Its provisions are designed to undo essentially every step taken by the Biden Administration to address the worsening climate crisis.
The bill (HR 1) passed the House on a 225-204 vote mostly along party lines, with only four Democrats joining all but one Republican in supporting the bill. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared that the bill was “dead on arrival” in the Senate, and President Biden vowed to veto the legislation even if it managed to reach his desk, which at this point seems highly unlikely.
“Republicans refuse to hold polluters accountable for the damage they cause to our air, our water, our communities and our climate,″ said New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “While Democrats delivered historic wins for the American people by passing historic climate legislation, Republicans are actively working to undermine that progress and do the bidding of their polluter friends.″
League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Vice President of Government Affairs Sara Chieffo said, “House Republicans just passed their biggest legislative priority — a disgraceful package of bills that will raise costs, perpetuate the climate crisis, and worsen environmental injustice. Who wins in this bill? Big Oil CEOs that are already raking in sky high profits at our expense. The Polluters Over People Act would lock the country into harmful fossil fuel production for decades and allow destructive oil and gas pipelines to be built without critical community input. Despite Republicans’ misnomer for the legislation, the Polluters Over People Act will actually raise costs for consumers, including by ending popular, cost-saving clean energy rebates and investments, and it would raise the deficit to boot. Put simply, this package will enrich Big Oil CEOs at the expense of communities, especially communities of color, who are disproportionately exposed to health-harming toxic pollution.”
Chispa LCV Senior Vice President of Community and Civic Engagement Sandra Pérez González said, “Chispa LCV condemns the passage of this destructive energy package that does not offer real solutions to high energy costs and would lock us into decades of dirty fossil fuels, perpetuate the climate crisis, and cut out our communities from the process. The last thing our communities need is more dirty and dangerous pollution in the air where we work, play, live, learn, and spend time with our families. The extreme MAGA Republican-controlled House is completely out of step with the vast majority of people in this country who support affordable, clean energy.”
North Carolina’s delegation to the US House split along party lines on the bill, with all seven Republicans voting yes and all seven Democrats voting no. NCLCV tweeted its thanks to the seven North Carolina “no” votes on HR1 “for fighting for our climate and lower energy costs.”
