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This is in response to the recent column by Peter Dugas and Jeff Marks supporting the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA). This bill, as currently drafted, would be the most significant reversal in environmental and community protections in decades by favoring fossil fuel projects.
David Watkins of the Union of Concerned Scientists writes: “BAAJA undermines bedrock environmental laws while granting the fossil fuel industry more power, more access to public lands, and less accountability. In return, it includes tenuous renewable energy and transmission provisions, many of which could be achieved under current law. Without significant improvements, which seem unlikely, enactment of BAAJA could be worse than the status quo, which is already terrible.”
Fossil fuels are more expensive, more polluting, and more hazardous to our health than wind and solar. We need common sense legislation that will enable the transition to clean energy sources and cease subsidizing the fossil fuel industry with our tax dollars. Without subsidies, this industry will likely rapidly become a small player in the energy market.
The Senate bill was seemingly crafted without meaningful input from broad categories of stakeholders, including environmental groups and scientific experts. The Senate plans to vote on it soon after the November elections. Please reach out, now, to Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, to ask them to vote “no” on this latest version of BAAJA.
Bob Lodato
Charleston