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They say laws are like sausages — better to not see them being made.
For better or worse, we all got to see the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — a scaled-down version of the Build Back Better Act that on Sunday narrowly passed the U.S. Senate — being made as it splattered across the media.
Now, for better AND worse, we got to learn what’s in it.
Foremost, we congratulate the Senate Democrats for actually doing something about climate change.
This $740 billion bill certainly has lots of money and provisions in it that create clean energy jobs, increase energy efficiency in homes and businesses, help clear the air in our smog-filled cities and potentially lower greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
It took only 30 years since climate change was widely publicly recognized as a problem and only 13 years since the 2009 collapse of similar laws in the U.S. Senate.
Finally, something was accomplished in Washington, D.C.
But that’s where the praise ends — because this bill is rife with anti-environmental provisions, money and legal maneuvers that undercut much, if not all, of the good the legislation may create.
Here are six things wrong with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022:
1. It “streamlines” the permitting process for the construction of fossil fuel pipelines, coal mines and chemical plants (among other projects) throughout the U.S.
This undercutting of federal environmental laws — ostensibly in an act that espouses to protect the environment — is a gift to polluters and corporate America as they continue pursuing their swath of destruction across our landscapes.
2. It offers up a new 700 million acres of public lands and waters for oil and gas drilling over the next decade.
If President Biden signs this bill into law, it will diabolically oppose his campaign promise to stop drilling on public lands.
Further, the legislation simply ignores how it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while subsidizing more drilling and fracking.
3. It gives billions of dollars of new tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry.
The act is so convoluted in favor of Big Oil that the CEO of Exxon said he was “pleased” with the “comprehensive set of solutions” in it.
These subsidies occur at the exact moment in history when Big Oil is making record profits from record gasoline prices across the U.S.
4. The hydropower industry also loves the act because it hands out subsidies and tax breaks to support and enhance river-destroying dam projects across the U.S.
At the exact moment when dams and reservoirs in California and across the Colorado River basin of the Southwest are being drained and rendered useless by climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act invests more money in a failed technology that further decimates America’s river systems.
5. It weirdly includes $1.4 billion for more logging of large and old-growth trees in our National Forests and other public lands.
Under the guise of “fire suppression” using spurious ideas that lack scientific consensus, the legislation will accelerate logging and the burning of trees as a fuel source.
In fact, logging in U.S. forests is now responsible for as much annual greenhouse gas emissions as burning coal in the U.S.
6. This administration and much of the American environmental movement have still not come to grips with the amount of mining of rare earth materials — including lithium, cobalt, and others — it takes to create batteries for electric cars and other energy storage systems.
This mining often occurs under the worst human-rights abuses in developing countries and creates “Lords of Lithium” oligarchic empires amidst a tyranny of corporate greed and profit.
Further, this “offshoring” of greenhouse gas emissions to other countries caused by the mining and the production of cars, batteries and other so-called clean-energy technology raises serious questions about if the bill will actually reduce global emissions at all.
On July 29, 369 environmental and social justice groups sent a letter to President Biden railing against the anti-environmental provisions and money in the act saying it was rife with “poison pills” and was a “climate suicide pact.”
The Indigenous Environmental Network outright opposes the act, saying it “continues the status quo” and “does not provide climate nor energy security and will not cut emissions at the level that is needed to address this climate emergency.”
If you’re hungry for sausage, look elsewhere for dinner because the Inflation Reduction Act is a rancid-smelling meat, the likes of which are better fed to the dog than served to humans at a Sunday barbeque.
