Energy

Tell your member of Congress to stop overburdensome and expensive energy laws

Lance Brown Contributor
Font Size:

Congress adjourned this week, and members will be back in their home states through the November election. But even while they are back home — and legislation is on hold on Capitol Hill — it is important that constituents continue to communicate our staunch opposition to a federal renewable energy standard (RES) and its potentially detrimental impact on the economy.

Last week, Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) introduced RES legislation in the Senate despite the lack of broad support for the economically irresponsible measure.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed his concerns for the proposal: “Sen. McConnell does not support an electricity rate hike, particularly in the middle of a recession. He wasn’t for the president’s job-killing national energy tax, and he’s not for this utility rate tax hike on Kentuckians either,” stated a spokesman.

The effects of the proposal will be widespread. A recent Heritage Foundation analysis found that a “22.5 percent RES by 2025 would cause household electricity prices to jump 36 percent, and industry prices would rise by 60 percent by 2035. There would be 1 million fewer people working on average with the RES in effect. And as the mandated level of renewable use rises over time, so do the losses imposed on the economy. Summing up the impact for 2012 to 2035 yields a total loss of $5.2 trillion in GDP.”

Mississippi is one of the many states that could be dramatically affected by the pending energy laws and regulations. On Sept. 27, I hosted a town hall meeting in Starkville to discuss energy issues with Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) and a panel of energy experts. I encourage others who are just as concerned about these proposals to attend similar town halls, and voice concerns to their members of Congress.  We must ensure that plans for a hidden “Energy Tax” do not go unnoticed through this election season.

It is also important to make our elected officials aware that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is stepping in to regulate the economy even though Congress has not explicitly instructed them to do so. The EPA’s consumer-crippling power grab will widely impact energy costs.

The most frightening among the EPA’s plans is their cutting of reliable and clean forms of energy like woody biomass, which will not be exempt by their Tailoring Rule, about which I recently wrote. The EPA’s newly seized and heavy-handed authority will have a very real impact on consumers who live in areas that do not have access to abundant solar or wind generation options.

After a failed attempt to block new climate change regulations from taking effect for two years, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) stated, “It’s disappointing that Democrats again blocked bipartisan action to protect the American people from the backdoor national energy tax coming in the form of new job-killing carbon regulations from EPA.”

Additionally, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works released a report this week showing that almost 800,000 jobs are at risk because of the EPA’s overzealous regulations. Sen. Inhofe released a statement saying, in part, “EPA will make consumers pay more for electricity, shut down the local factory, and give Chinese firms a decisive advantage over America’s manufacturers, which are struggling to meet the agency’s bureaucratic mandates.”

Do you know where your member of Congress stands on these energy policies? It is imperative that we take the time to make our voices heard and tell members of Congress not to adopt policies that will harm the hard-working families that elect them.

Lance Brown is the Executive Director of PACE.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel