Republicans should stand up for clean energy initiatives being gutted by Trump

Editor:

The Inflation Reduction Act is under attack! This policy serves to spur private investment, clean our electric grid and reduce costs for consumers. Our district benefited from this when Plug Power invested $387 million for their facility in the STAMP industrial park.

Sadly, the budget bill passed out of the House shackles NY energy, increases costs for consumers, jeopardizes the economy and our energy security and puts us at a dis-advantage on the world stage due to the fact that it guts the clean energy provisions of the IRA.

These cuts will stall innovation in advanced energy technologies like nuclear, geothermal, and long-duration storage, increase our climate pollution and put $500 billion in investments in our energy supply at risk. Gutting the IRA would be a de-facto tax on energy.

I hope that Congresswoman Claudia Tenney will follow in the footsteps of Republican environmental giants of the 20th century like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon and support solutions to address environmental problems by restoring the clean energy provisions of the IRA.

As a lifelong Republican and a member of Citizen’s Climate Lobby, I know that Conservation is Conservative!

Rob Johnson

Medina