Reconciliation Bill will hike energy costs, reward polluters
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Michigan League of Conservation Voters (MLCV) today condemned the passage of the disastrous GOP-led budget reconciliation bill in the U.S. Senate as a dangerous, shameful giveaway to fossil fuel companies and corporate polluters that sacrifices Michigan families, our economy and our environment.
“This bill is a scorched-earth assault on the health, wallets and future of every Michigander,” said Bentley Johnson, federal government affairs director for Michigan LCV. “At a time when families are battling rising costs, dangerous air pollution and the escalating impacts of climate change, Senate Republicans chose to side with billionaire polluters over the people they were elected to serve. This is legislative malpractice of the highest order.”
The damage is staggering. The bill guts nearly all federal investments in clean energy, sending electricity rates skyrocketing and gas prices soaring — with Michiganders expected to pay an extra $120 a year immediately and up to $230 annually within a decade, according to a new analysis. Over the next ten years, the Center for American Progress projects families nationwide are projected to shell out more than $400 billion in higher energy costs, including a painful 25 to 37 cent per gallon spike in gas prices.
“Clean, renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy around and can be connected to the grid faster than fossil fuels,” Johnson said. “This bill puts politics over making people’s lives better and aims to take a sledgehammer to tremendous progress that’s been made to make our energy grid cleaner, more reliable and more affordable. This is all so the fossil fuel CEOs can pad their record-breaking profits while our communities are left with dirtier air and water.”
On top of the economic pain, the bill kneecaps Michigan’s ability to build the clean energy infrastructure urgently needed, threatening more than 830,000 jobs and locking Michigan into an outdated, polluting energy system.
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