The U.S. Senate’s Dirty Energy Bill Must Not See the Light of Day

The 850-page legislation would fast-track dirty fossil fuels, but Democrats are remaining silent.

In the wake of Senate Republicans’ ever-deepening debacle over their flailing attempts to strip health insurance from 22 million people, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is desperate to do something – anything – to show that he can get legislation passed. To this end, he’s bypassing the standard committee review process to push a complex 850+ page energy bill straight to the full Senate floor. Perhaps not surprisingly, this legislation, the Energy and Natural Resources Act of 2017, would be a disaster for public health and our climate.

Despite its benign-sounding name, the bill would be a catastrophe, effectively locking the US into fossil-fuel dependency for decades. This dirty energy legislation would allocate millions of dollars for the discovery and extraction of fossil fuels off US coastal waters, speed up the review period required for fracked gas terminals, and instruct the Bureau of Land Management to create a program to expedite drilling and fracking permits. These are shameful giveaways to the oil and gas industry—directly in line with Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda.

Even worse, the bill gives no mention of clean wind and solar power – precisely at a moment in our history when we need to transition to 100 percent renewable energy now. The science is clear: If we’re going to have a chance of avoiding the worst of climate catastrophes and public health crises in coming years, we need to get off fossil fuels immediately.

Thankfully, the Trump/McConnell dirty energy bill could be shelved indefinitely. After all, the Republicans are looking for an easy win, and any significant opposition from Democrats to this bill would deter them from proceeding. But as of this publication, not a single Senate Democrat has come out against the legislation!

Senate Democrats need to hear from all of us urgently – tell them to oppose the Trump/McConnell Dirty Energy Bill now.

We know who Trump and McConnell are really looking out for: their deep-pocketed Big Oil and Gas donors. But we have a chance to stop this bill and move immediately on the path to the Clean Energy Revolution. We must each tell our senators to stand up to this dangerous bill, and publicly oppose it. Our health and the future of our planet depend on it.

Featured image from Food & Water Watch


Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [email protected]

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: [email protected]