A memo circulated by Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks claims that “radical and insane policies” in the Build Back Better Act “will break our economy.”
Banks distributed the memo, obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller, to the Republican Study Committee “to break down the so-called ‘green’ parts of this bill and analyze how they’ll impact working families,” he wrote. The social spending package, which has a top-line cost of $1.75 trillion, could add as much as $4.9 trillion to the national debt, according to an estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has not yet provided an official score for the entire bill.
Within the Build Back Better package, Banks claims that “half a trillion in funding and policies amount to ‘Phase One of the Green New Deal.'”
The memo cites recently-unearthed comments from nominee for Comptroller of the Currency Saule Omarova as evidence for the Biden administration’s desire to eliminate fossil fuel energy sources. She claimed that people should want coal, oil, and gas companies “to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change,” during a March lecture at the Jain Family Institute. (RELATED: GOP Senators Call Out Biden Nominee’s Rant About Bankrupting Fossil Fuel Industries)
“Democrats’ ‘green’ energy policies are designed to make working class families’ lives uncomfortable,” Banks wrote. “That’s on purpose — Democrats have long advocated for energy taxes to encourage people to use less. They want to phase out the energy sources Americans depend on and replace them with more expensive and less reliable ‘green’ energy sources.”
The memo notes provisions that ban oil and natural gas drilling on federal lands and offshore oil and natural gas drilling, while providing tax credits for electric vehicles such as cars and motorcycles.
“The bill would increase American dependency on foreign oil at a time the Biden administration is literally begging OPEC to drill more oil,” Banks added.
Some Democrats, including Biden, have suggested that gas price increases are due to price-gouging from energy companies. Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey claimed that oil companies are “shaking [Americans] upside down at gas pumps.”
Press secretary Jen Psaki has at times welcomed high gas prices, claiming that they “make an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy options,” at her Nov. 12 press conference.
Read the memo here:
