In response to the news that Adam Kinziger (R-IL-16) and Mike Doyle (D-PA-14) have joined the Climate Solutions Caucus, RL Miller of Climate Hawks Vote responds: “Keystone XL supporter Kinzinger is nothing more than yet another climate peacock.”
Kinzinger is a common or garden variety House Republican serving on the House Energy & Commerce Committee; in other words, he routinely votes with polluters. He’s voted for the GOP tax cut bill that opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling (HR 1, 2017). He’s voted for methane pollution time (HR 3354, 2017) and time again (H. J. Res. 36, 2016). He voted for the Scalise anti-carbon tax resolution (H. Con. Res. 119, 2018).
He even voted for incandescent light bulbs, seeking to undo a Bush-era executive order phasing out the wasteful bulbs. (HR 2417, 2011).
Kinzinger does consider one form of clean energy to deserve his support: he’s a big booster of nuclear power. Kinzinger and Doyle paired up in 2017 to introduce the NUKE Act (HR 1320). Now they’re joining the Climate “Solutions” caucus as a matched pair.
“At some point — and that point has passed — the Climate Solutions Caucus needs to justify its existence. Its proponents point to the caucus’ work in defeating the Perry amendment on July 13, 2017 — over a full year ago — to show that it has accomplished some good,” says RL Miller of Climate Hawks Vote. “Since then, the climate peacocks have strutted and multiplied, but failed to act. It’s time for the caucus to disband rather than send out self-congratulatory preening press releases.”
