As a pall of poisonous smoke lingered over the Upper Midwest, politicians long oblivious to the danger of a global environmental catastrophe became suddenly “woke”.
Former Republican Congress person Candice Miller of Michigan had a lifetime League of Conservation Voters rating of 11%.
Voted YES on authorizing construction of new oil refineries.
To expedite the construction of new refining capacity in the United States, to provide reliable and affordable energy for the American people, and for other purposes including:
- Authorizing the President to designate sites on Federal land for construction of new oil refineries, including at least three on closed military bases
- Allowing the Secretary of Energy to enter into contracts with non-Federal entities to construct or restore new refineries that use crude oil or coal to produce gasoline or other fuel
- Establishing a program to encourage carpools by giving grants to states and to evaluate the use of the Internet to link riders with carpools, assist employers establish carpool programs, and market existing programs
- Authorizing any facility to use biomass debris as fuel if it meets certain standards, such as resulting from a major disaster
- $2.5 million to create an education campaign about gasoline conservation
Voted NO on enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution.
Congressional Summary:Requires utilities to supply an increasing percentage of their demand from a combination of energy efficiency savings and renewable energy (6% in 2012, 9.5% in 2014, 13% in 2016, 16.5% in 2018, and 20% in 2021). Provides for:
- issuing, trading, and verifying renewable electricity credits; and
- prescribing standards to define and measure electricity savings from energy efficiency and energy conservation measures.
Amends the Clean Air Act (CAA) to set forth a national strategy to address barriers to the commercial-scale deployment of carbon capture and sequestration.
Voted YES on barring EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
- Excludes GHGs from the definition of “air pollutant” for purposes of addressing climate change.
- Exempts from such prohibition existing regulations on fuel efficiency, research, or CO2 monitoring.
- Repeals and makes ineffective other rules and actions concerning GHGs.
Bar greenhouse gases from Clean Air Act rules.
Miller signed H.R.391
- exclude from the definition of the term “air pollutant” carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride; and
- declare that nothing in the Act shall be treated as authorizing or requiring the regulation of climate change or global warming.
Signed the No Climate Tax Pledge by AFP.
Miller signed the No Climate Tax Pledge
No Climate Tax Pledge: “I pledge to the taxpayers of my state, and to the American people, that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.”
Sponsoring organizations: Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEU); National Taxpayers Union (NTU); Institute for Liberty Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen-leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and intrusiveness of government is the best way to promote individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans.
Drill the Outer Continental Shelf; & license new nuke plants.
Miller signed Roadmap for America’s Energy Future
- Directs the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a lease sale every 270 days in each outer Continental Shelf (OCS) planning region for which there is a commercial interest in purchasing federal oil and gas leases for OCS production.
- Requires the federal share of proceeds of lease sales from newly open areas to be deposited in the American-Made Energy Trust Fund (established by this Act).
- Requires the Secretary to accept, in satisfaction of mitigation requirements, proposals for mitigation measures on a site away from the area impacted by exploration and production activities.
- Directs the Secretary to establish a leasing program for oil, gas and oil shale within the Alaska Coastal Plain (ANWR).
- Requires the Secretary to hold a lease sale offering an additional 10 parcels for lease for oil shale development.
- Directs the Secretary of Defense (DOD) to develop, construct, and operate a coal-to-liquid facility.
- States it is the policy of the United States to facilitate the continued development and growth of a safe and clean nuclear energy industry through reductions in financial, regulatory, and technical barriers to construction and operation.
- Directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to issue operating permits for 200 new commercial nuclear reactors.
- Removes all current statutory limitations upon the amount of radiological material that can be placed in Yucca Mountain. Requires the NRC to replace them with new limits based on scientific and technical analysis of the full capacity of Yucca Mountain for the storage of radiological material.
- Prohibits the President from blocking or hindering spent nuclear fuel recycling activities.
- Amends the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to prohibit consideration of the climate change-related impact of a greenhouse gas upon any species of fish, wildlife, or plant.
But, Blame Canada.
https://youtu.be/bOR38552MJA
The last 2 lines of this song:
“We have to blame them and cause a fuss before somebody thinks of blaming us”
Yes – classic case of FAFO. Less of the misogynistic ‘Karen’ BS though please.
I’ll be sure to reference “Ken” of “Cletus” when the occasion arises.
Climate psychosis.
To deny that civilization and nature are threatened by an ongoing, rapidly worsening, human-caused ecological cataclysm is completely insane at this point. It’s monstrously delusional.
Nuclear psychosis.
200 new nukes is never going to happen. If it could, or if the country even tried in a small way, it would either vastly increase government taxation or vastly increase everyone’s electricity bills.
I don’t see any way it wouldn’t do both.
Politicians’ psychosis.
The idea that mothers were responsible for the onset of schizophrenia through double binds has been discredited. But double binds are the causes of serious problems. (Gregory Bateson) Politicians in red, purple, and cobalt blue districts and states are both victims and perpetrators of the climate denial double bind: that climate catastrophe’s effects are worsening but those politicians will be successfully primaried if they do anything to fix it is the bind. That bind is in 2 parts so many people think that’s the double bind. But all binds have 2 parts. The second bind is that even though they know on some level that climate catastrophe and the larger ecological crisis are happening, and serious, they can’t acknowledge it—in some cases even to themselves—without being voted out. That forced collective unconsciousness is the second bind. But the whole dilemma is one those politicians have helped create. (Is that a third bind?)
When renewables are seen as a solution to a problem they can’t acknowledge, and are perceived as expensive and dangerous because of the lies spread by industry and the politicians, nukes seem like a way out of the dilemma. People and corporations well-practiced in self- and other-deception have no trouble making themselves and other similarly vulnerable people believe it, though it involves denying all the real, very serious problems with them.
Love the South Park segment 😀. Comic spoof……meet reality 🙄.
Excellent overview of Candice Miller’s record of ignorance with respect to the underlying causes of the massive wildfires that have ravaged Canada and degraded air quality in the greatly mistreated USA. This particular species of lunacy is apparently rampant among certain MAGA Republicans in the upper Midwest of the United States. I call your attention to the letter from 2 members of the US House of Representatives, Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin and Brad Finstad of Minnesota, to Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, on July 7 in which they decry the lack of Canadian attention to the wildfires and the effect they are having on air quality in the US. What is Canada going to DO about it?!! Let’s sing a rousing chorus of “Blame Canada!” JFC!!!
I know the link is paywalled, but the Chicago Tribune editorial board just essentially repeated the “let’s not talk about causes” and it’s really just like your politician avoiding the elephant she’s complaining about smelling.
“This is not a new summertime status quo to which Chicagoans and other Upper Midwesterners simply should be told to get accustomed. It’s unacceptable and should be treated as such.
We’re not saying that solving a problem driven by large-scale climatic changes is simple — or cheap. There’s a reason Canada isn’t equipped like the U.S. to battle fires sparked in wilderness areas. Our neighbor to the north hasn’t needed the capability in the past. It does now.
To be fair, the United States has faced its own reckoning with increasingly destructive wildfires, especially in the West. But we’ve built up a robust federal firefighting infrastructure over decades in response — something Canada is only now beginning to consider on a national scale.
What’s needed is for leaders to make this scourge a priority. Where there’s a will there’s a way, especially given the wealth held in North America.”
Then they finish this piece with ZERO mention of ending fossil fuel emissions. Sheesh. They might as well print bundles of the paper and burn them.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/05/editorial-canada-wildfires-poor-air-quality-summer/
Zero mention of climate catastrophe.
An increasingly common form of obeisance to the infant king now that we’ve gotten past the nanosecond during which media recognized its existence.
Criminal? Or diagnosable?
We USED to have a robust federal firefighting infrastructure. Maybe Canada can have it now. It can rehome itself.
The Tribune’s editorial board has not changed to appease Trump, they are who they are for a long time – not exactly like extreme cases like any Murdoch editorial board, but not willing to call for ending a business-enhanced disaster if they can avoid annoying the business community.
As to institutional firefighting capability – one problem is that the seasons in Australia and US have started to overlap, so more capacity is needed just because that ability to share unused capacity is ending. Add in more people moving into harms way in our Mountain States, and the warmer winters leading to insect damage spreading up the Pacific Coast and interior forests and it’s not just that Canada needs to rake their vast boreal forests which didn’t catch fire as often before.
If only our editorial boards and politicians had some kind of clue as to what could be different now – what might have changed….
Of course it’s no longer about what’s needed; it’s about what the Republicans allow. And even if us firefighting ability hasn’t been destroyed, it soon will be.