cross-posted from: https://lemmy.librarysocialism.social/post/61306
The US Senate on Monday voted in bipartisan fashion to advance a fossil fuel industry-backed permitting reform bill that would weaken the Clean Water Act and other key environmental protections to make it easier for the federal government to streamline energy projects—including climate-wrecking gas pipelines.
That fucking sucks.
If you read about the legislation, there was a lot of phrasing in it to make it sound like they were giving concessions to climate goals, but in practice it’s really just a palatable wrapper to cut red tape for fossil fuel companies.
It had a couple riders though such as lukewarm regulations for data centers, so I wonder how many of these Dems got caught up in that, or how many neglected to read it for its substance.
I have no doubt that some of them at least voted for it because it’s a boon to the fossil fuel industry though.
We might be able to use some parts of it to further the development of renewable energy infrastructure, but overall that’s a consolation prize at best, and this should have been rejected in favor of crafting better legislation next session.
I already commented this elsewhere, but the phrasing wasn’t phony. The bill was endorsed by the Citizens Climate Lobby: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/get-loud-take-action/baaja/
They believe (and say on that link) that the bill with result in net reduction of emissions.
All of them neglected to read it. I think senators and congresscritters should have to take a test to prove they read a bill before being allowed to vote on it.
That would be so funny. We really have to micromanage them, don’t we?
They forget that they work for us, not the other way around. After all, who pays their salary?