The 21 Republicans Who Flouted Their Voters’ Wishes on Clean Energy
This story is part of the 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.
I was curious how these representatives would justify their votes, so I asked them. Only one member, Don Bacon of Nebraska, got back to me. He pointed to the OBBB’s nuclear and biofuels provisions, admitted he didn’t get all he wanted on wind and solar, and explained that he “had to weigh the bill in its entirety” because “in the end, America needed the tax rates for individuals to become permanent.” Translation: Decreasing domestic manufacturing, undermining energy innovation, and raising utility costs is just the price you pay for cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires.
As for the rest of the signatories’ reasoning, we’ll have to make our own deductions. Here’s my best bet: These Republicans, like most GOP politicians in 2025 who aren’t committed fascists, are spineless cowards who can be counted on to sell out their constituents in order to protect themselves from Trump’s reprobation. (Thomas Massie and Brian Fitzpatrick, the only two Republicans to vote against the OBBB, are exceptions that prove this rule.)
But that made me curious about a secondary question: Could this particular instance of cowardice come back to bite these cowardly 21 Republicans? The current conventional wisdom would seem to be no. Searchlight Institute, a new billionaire-funded Democratic think tank, is telling Democrats, “Don’t say climate change.” Public support for clean energy and climate action is, according to many accounts, at a nadir. Right?
