How, I wonder, do climate-denying Americans manage to ignore the mounting evidence of climate change? I suppose I can understand that people might once have dismissed the overwhelming majority of scientists who’ve been warning us for many years. After all, the changes we actually have experienced until recently–things like spring coming earlier each year–have been subtle. But you’d think our recent episodes of weather disasters, the fires following unusual droughts, and the hurricanes made more powerful and destructive thanks to their paths over warming oceans, would have convinced them.
Evidently not. At least not Hoosier Republicans.
Not only did Mike Braun and Jim Banks vote against added funding for FEMA, Braun and Rokita have opposed Indiana utilities plans to phase out their dependence on coal. According to the Capital Chronicle, Braun just sent a letter to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) opposing a coal plant’s proposed conversion to natural gas.
He urged commissioners to deny the conversion, and encouraged collaboration with policymakers to preserve coal’s role — “the most reliable baseload fuel” — while “looking to the future.”
Todd Rokita, Indiana’s embarrassing Attorney General, has been an even more avid protector of the fossil fuel. As another article from the Chronicle has reported, the Attorney general has urged utility regulators to deny early coal plant retirements.
Coal plants have historically had 50-year lifespans, according to a 2019 article published in Nature Communications. But they can last longer with fixes and upgrades.
U.S. coal plants are about 44 years old, in a capacity-weighted average, according to an analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Plants scheduled for retirement this year averaged 54 years of age: almost a decade older.
But coal plants decommissioned amid their expected decades-long lives have become a political flashpoint.
The IURC says it lacks the authority to prevent a utility from converting from coal–that the agency’s jurisdiction is limited to assessing the reasonableness of rates and other tasks spelled out in the legislation that established it. Rokita, however, argues that the IURC doesn’t need explicit authority. Meanwhile, Indiana’s Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would grant the IURC that specific authority. The article noted that the legislature might also require that such action be made mandatory and not discretionary.
House Bill 1382, introduced last session, would’ve spelled that out. It also laid out conditions utilities would’ve had to meet in order to apply for permission to close any “fossil fuel fired” plant. The proposal never got a hearing and died.
The Hoosier Environmental Council said that bill would slow Indiana’s transition away from coal, a dirty fossil fuel, to greener energy sources.
“Besides adding an unnecessary burden to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, this bill encourages our public utilities to keep their current energy generation sources running as long as possible, which are majority fossil fuels,” the council said on its website.
Indiana’s GOP characterizes concern for the environment as an attribute of “far Left liberalism.”
The digitally-altered Braun attack ad against Jennifer McCormick is telling. (It was also illegal…) That altered ad was intended to demonstrate to Hoosier voters that McCormick is “unacceptably liberal.” The evidence for that assertion included her prior support for Hillary Clinton and her current support for Joe Biden, a purported attack on gas stoves, and her intention to create a state office that would focus on environmental issues.
The altered ad was visually and textually dishonest. McCormick had never even mentioned gas stoves, and has made it clear that she’s concerned with weightier matters–like women’s reproductive rights. But that accusation was clearly intended to buttress the case for her “unacceptable liberalism.”
What is truly notable about that bit of egregious dishonesty is the obvious assumption that voters will agree with its premise: the only Americans who take climate change seriously are “far Left”– that people who care about the environment are by definition “too liberal” for public office.
According to Indiana’s GOP, basic scientific literacy–not to mention common sense–is disqualifying.
I don’t understand when climate change became a culture war issue. I don’t understand people who dismiss knowledge and expertise as some sort of phony elitism. And I really don’t understand how anyone even remotely aware of Hurricanes Helene and Norman can continue to ignore the evidence of their senses.
The Republicans’ rejection of fact, science and evidence does explain the party’s animosity toward education, and GOP support for the vouchers that encourage parents to send their children to schools that will “protect” them from “theories” like evolution and climate change.
It’s just another example of Republicans’ rejection of reality. Hoosiers need to vote Blue.
Very timely issue, Shiela.
We relocated from Indianapolis to Asheville N.C. last March. Three weeks ago two separate storms back to back hit Buncombe County. The first was a heavy rainstorm that saturated the watershed then the eye of Hurricane Helene followed what weather experts rated a 1,000 year event. Buncombe County was hardest hit than other affected counties in North Carolina.
I do not even have adequate language to describe devastation to our community. Swift water rescue teams still searching for missing people. Overnight, our community became a third world nightmare with skilled rescue teams immediately summoned from other states thanks to FEMA.
Braun would do well to consult with his Republican colleague, Congressman Edwards in our Congressional District 11, North Carolina, before initiating legislative action to reduce funding of FEMA. Power restoration crews came to North Carolina from sixteen states and Canada. Once again, thanks to immediate mobilization from FEMA once state officials declared a disaster. All they had to do was look out their own window to witness a catastrophe.
I do not know if Indiana showed up among the sixteen states, but believe me people here as in other states have long memories who showed up (what comes round goes round)… including an aspiring politician like Braun defunding FEMA based on spurious claims for lack of evidence of climate change. Perhaps for Braun the story of Noah in The Bible is just another fairy tale. Poor Braun! He may be confused who to listen to to swell his far right base.
Back to work. Thank you Sheila for the thoughtful post today.
Further search … YES:
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/hoosier-helpers-stepping-up-after-hurricane-helene-indiana-task-force-1-one-north-carolina/531-59b80b1f-fa4f-4d0c-94b3-50eba298c414
A crew from Indiana did show up in North Carolina and immediately tasked by FEMA to McDowell County N.C. Did Braun consult with Hoosiers before deciding to initiate defunding of FEMA?
“How you can profit from Armageddon”
Norris, my heart goes out to you and your family as it does to all of those caught up in these recent disasters. Recovery from such events will be long and hard, but with the help of the entire nation it will happen. One of the obstacles to recovery is the continued blind and obstinate resistance to change as demonstrated by Braun and Banks.
Going forward, could you please keep us all informed of what is happening there and how we may help?
I see today’s Republican party as being stuck in the past. With school vouchers, they want to preserve the past’s segregation. As for climate change, they want to preserve the past when we burned coal and they want to preserve coal mining jobs. They are against teaching evolution because they want to preserve the past’s literal interpretation of the Bible. As far as reproductive freedom is concerned, Republicans want to return us to a time before the birth control pill was invented and abortions were done in back rooms. As for vaccinations, they want to go back to an era when children died of infections. In summary, today’s Republican party is about bigotry and anti-science. Let’s not go back. Vote Blue!
“I don’t understand when climate change became a culture issue.”
It happened when fossil fuel companies realized that responding to it would cut into their profits and mounted a very deliberate campaign to deny it. For evidence of this, read “Merchants of Doubt.”
Author’s name is Naomi Oreskes.
Lately I have heard grudging acknowledgment of global warming* by conservatives, but now they argue we can’t do anything about it because China, India, etc. continue to build coal fired power plants.
* Frank Luntz, pollster and strategist found Republican focus groups thought “climate change” sounded less alarmist.
Until Helene, Asheville was considered, “out of the zone” for hurricanes. I bought my home in Ft. Myers in 2003, when it seemed that a major hurricane would only hit here about once in 30 years. Now, we know that that has changed rather dramatically. We’ve had Ian, Idalia, Helene, and Milton in 2 years. The only good thing I can say about it is, since Ian took my roof, I didn’t have to quibble with the roofing company about the relatively minor damage from Milton.
Senator Scott, famous for pulling off the biggest heist of Medicare in history, complained that FEMA is underfunded, until people started telling Floridians that he voted against funding for FEMA. I would also like to note that, when on the stand at the trial, he seemed to have amnesia (looks like a continuing condition). He just didn’t remember signing that document or approving this or that. He never paid any fines or fees and he didn’t do a minute of time behind bars.
I did wonder if Mr. Braun has already been appointed as governor? Am I wrong in thinking that orders to IURC should come from Mr. Holcomb?
Republicans complaining about “socialist Democrats” out of one side of their mouths while dictating business decisions to a company out of the other? I’m shocked! Shocked!
Milton, not Norman, btw.
Greed is the answer, I believe, when it comes to the politicos. Either they are being funded by coal entities, and they think that challenging them would cost, or
accepting climate change to be real, would be too “woke.”
I think that we who engage in Sheila’s blog are not afraid of science, and the evidence the scientific method uncovers. But the MAGA crowd, and many right-leaning people, I believe, have long dismissed science as elitist fluff, despite the FACT that it has brought them cell phones, computers, and so much more.
As for the likes of Rokita and Braun, my comments would not be proper on a “family oriented” platform such as this.
Great comments above!
I believe the Koch-owned puppets of the GOP have let themselves be known. You would think that a business owner like Braun (who claims to reject government interference and be pro-market) would be the last person advocating for a regulatory body to tell a publicly-owned company what it can and cannot do. That is the role of the shareholders/members.
What about the free market moving toward alternative fuels besides those owned by Koch and his ilk?
The hypocrisy is rich within the GOP.
The lies they spew are more than sickening. I am tired of fact-checking for my social media “friends” when they post a lie directly from Trump or any other Republican. And most of those lies are spewed on Fox News. Mourdock has placed lies on the same plane as truths in the US. As long as Republicans can run to Fox News and spew whatever they want without being fact-checked, the lemmings on the right will continue jumping off the cliff and making an ass of themselves.
For those interested, FEMA established its own webpage to debunk rumors because of all the Trump and MAGATs lies. #sad
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/recover/rumor/hurricane-rumor-response
Indiana government’s relationship with corporate donors reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon about the relationship between his company’s marketing and sales department:
“Marketing people don’t screw our customers, they just hold the customer while the salesman screws him.”