(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . For The GOP, 'Freedom' Means You're Free To Pay More For Their Donors' Dirty Energy [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-23 When you think of "freedom," do you think of paying more for a worse product? No? Well good, you shouldn't. No one does. Except, perhaps, House Republicans, whose new HR 1 bill, the " Lower Energy Costs Act ," would increase energy costs, and includes a section labeled "Homeowner Energy Freedom" that would leave homeowners 'free' to continue using old, inefficient, and wasteful appliances. How would a legislative package named for lowering costs actually increase them? Well, Republicans want to boost methane ( née natural ) gas exports, because they don't care that it hurts low-income communities and people of color on the frontlines of fossil fuel pollution in Texas and Louisiana. And they don't care that gas exports result in Americans paying more when competing on the global market, where prices can be five times as high . Even worse is the Homeowner Energy Freedom section, which you know is bad because it's dressed up with such a name. Other sections are named plainly to describe the intention: for example, the "Natural Gas Tax Repeal" section would repeal the section of the Clean Air Act that provides an incentive for oil companies to reduce methane emissions. Some conservatives love to claim that putting a price on pollution is a market-based solution that Republicans could support. However, when Republicans actually have policymaking power, they use it to try and repeal such efforts, even though a price on methane could reduce the climate-warming pollution by 40-80% at no net cost to producers, and despite the fact that reducing methane pollution is critical to protecting the 17 million people living close enough to be subjected to other types of pollution from these facilities. But the GOP didn't even try to hide those facts with a fancy name for that section, probably because repealing a tax is always going to sound good enough on its own to them. On the other hand, people like free money for upgrading their home appliances to more efficient new models that would reduce energy consumption and save on their power bills, so Republicans had to disguise their attempt to repeal those measures. By calling it the "Homeowner Energy Freedom" section, they're clearly hoping to confuse people about why they're repealing measures that would help people save hundreds of dollars per year on their energy bills by switching to electric appliances, programs that were designed to help low- and moderate-income households make upgrades to cleaner, better products. Why? Because for Republicans (and the decades of disinformation underpinning modern conservatism), "freedom" isn't about being able to openly embrace your gender identity or sexuality or being free to watch a drag show . It's not the freedom to choose whatever book you want from the library. It's not a life free from someone else's pollution, to be free to choose what to do with your body, to be free from racial discrimination while working at supposedly-too- 'woke'-Wall Street businesses, and to be free not to put your money in fossil fuel companies. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/3/23/2159786/-For-The-GOP-Freedom-Means-You-re-Free-To-Pay-More-For-Their-Donors-Dirty-Energy Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/