Latest news with #BrianSchatz
Irish Times
19-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
US to destroy almost $10m in contraceptives rather than send abroad for women in need
The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7 million (€8.34m) worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need. A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July. 'It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,' Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Ms Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction. 'This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,' added Ms Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio , about the matter. READ MORE The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any 'eligible buyers', in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organisations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson. Most of the contraceptives have less than 70 per cent of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAid labels that would need to be rebranded. The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration's months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAid), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial 'department of Government efficiency' (Doge) erased 83 per cent of USAID's programmes, Rubio announced in June that USAID's entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the state department. The agency will be replaced by an organisation called United States First. In total, the funding cuts to USAid could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children. 'If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it's quite likely that you will die,' said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organisation that works in nearly 40 countries. 'If you're not given the means to space or limit your births, you're putting your life at risk or your child's life at risk.' The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there's so much need – it's just egregious Sar Shaw, MSI Reproductive Choices MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US Government, Ms Shaw said. But the Government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI's ability to distribute them. The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Ms Shaw's allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an 'eligible buyer'. In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone. Ms Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. 'The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there's so much need – it's just egregious,' she said. 'It's disgusting.' The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction. The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Ms Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAid funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Ms Shaw said, USAid helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives. 'I've worked in this sector for over 20 years and I've never seen anything on this scale,' Ms Shaw said. 'The speed at which they've managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it's just vanished in weeks.' Food waste Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico. The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early on Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8 billion that had been earmarked for foreign assistance. 'It's not just about an empty shelf,' Ms Shaw said. 'It's about unfulfilled potential. It's about a girl having to drop out of school. It's about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That's what it's really about.' – Guardian
The Guardian
19-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Trump administration to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas
The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need. A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July. 'It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,' Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction. 'This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,' added Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, about the matter. The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any 'eligible buyers', in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson. Most of the contraceptives have less than 70% of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAID labels that would need to be rebranded. The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration's months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) erased 83% of USAID's programs, Rubio announced in June that USAID's entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the state department. The agency will be replaced by an organization called America First. In total, the funding cuts to USAID could lead to more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children. 'If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it's quite likely that you will die,' said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries. 'If you're not given the means to space or limit your births, you're putting your life at risk or your child's life at risk.' MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US government, Shaw said. But the government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI's ability to distribute them. The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Shaw's allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an 'eligible buyer'. In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone. Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. 'The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there's so much need – it's just egregious,' she said. 'It's disgusting.' The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction. The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAID funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Shaw said, USAID helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives. 'I've worked in this sector for over 20 years and I've never seen anything on this scale,' Shaw said. 'The speed at which they've managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it's just vanished in weeks.' Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico. The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early on Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8bn that had been earmarked for foreign assistance. 'It's not just about an empty shelf,' Shaw said. 'It's about unfulfilled potential. It's about a girl having to drop out of school. It's about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That's what it's really about.'
The Guardian
18-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Trump administration to destroy nearly $10m in contraceptives
The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need. A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July. 'It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,' Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction. 'This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,' added Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to secretary of state Marco Rubio about the matter. The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any 'eligible buyers', in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson. Most of the contraceptives have less than 70% of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAID labels that would need to be rebranded. The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration's months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) erased 83% of USAID's programs, Rubio announced in June that USAID's entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the State Department. The agency will be replaced by an organization called America First. In total, the funding cuts to USAID could lead to more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children. 'If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it's quite likely that you will die,' said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries. 'If you're not given the means to space or limit your births, you're putting your life at risk or your child's life at risk.' MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US government, Shaw said. But the government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI's ability to distribute them. The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Shaw's allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an 'eligible buyer'. In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone. Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. 'The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there's so much need – it's just egregious,' she said. 'It's disgusting.' The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction. The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAID funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Shaw said, USAID helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives. 'I've worked in this sector for over 20 years and I've never seen anything on this scale,' Shaw said. 'The speed at which they've managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it's just vanished in weeks.' Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico. The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8bn that had been earmarked for foreign assistance. 'It's not just about an empty shelf,' Shaw said. 'It's about unfulfilled potential. It's about a girl having to drop out of school. It's about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That's what it's really about.'
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Poll shows Green's approval rating at 63%
Gov. Josh Green has a 63 % approval rating among Hawaii's registered Democratic, Republican and independent voters, placing him in a tie for the fifth most-popular governor in the nation, according to the results of a voter survey released Wednesday by Morning Consult Pro. Green's approval rating among Hawaii voters has increased ahead of the 2026 gubernatorial election, in which no clear challenger with household name recognition has yet to emerge. Green has told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he intends to seek reelection to a second, and final, four-year term in 2026 but will make a formal announcement during the campaign season. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Green's disapproval rating has fallen from 37 % to now 27 %, according to Morning Consult Pro. Among Hawaii Democrats, Green has a 77 % approval rating, followed by 57 % from independents and a 46 % approval rating among Republicans. Among Republicans, Green has a disapproval rating of 51 %. The survey was conducted from April through June. 'I am extremely grateful to have so much support from our people, and will continue to focus on housing, affordability and keeping our people safe, ' Green wrote in a text to the Star-Advertiser. 'Our team is working as hard as we can to get results for Hawaii.' Morning Consult Pro did not release data on approval ratings of U.S. House members, but U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz ranks the third most-popular among America's senators, with a 63 % approval rating. U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, with a 59 % approval rating, was tied among four senators as the ninth most-popular U.S. senator with a 59 % approval rating. In 2022, Green won his first term as governor in a landslide following a Democratic Party primary where he first defeated U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele and former first lady Vicky Cayetano, which paved the way for a general election showdown with three-time Republican candidate James 'Duke ' Aiona to become only Hawaii's ninth governor since statehood. The general election wasn't close. Green and his lieutenant governor running mate, Sylvia Luke—outgoing chair of the House Finance Committee—more than doubled the votes cast for Aiona and his Republican running mate, Seaula 'Junior ' Tupa 'i Jr., a Hilo pastor and first-time candidate for state office. Following his electoral victory in 2022, Green told the Star-Advertiser : 'Every day for the next four years, I will work to heal old wounds, unite the people of Hawaii as one ohana and lead us forward to fulfill our commitments to each other, to our islands and to future generations. I'm incredibly grateful for all of this support from across our state, but I don't take it for granted and I'm going to work hard every day to earn it. Whether people cast a vote for me or not, I am going to work just as hard for them and their family.' The biggest challenge of Green's first year in office came in the aftermath of the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires, which killed 102 people, nearly obliterated Lahaina and caused $13 billion in damage. Many controversial decisions had to be made in response to the fires, notably Green's signing of a bill this month—one month before the second anniversary of the wildfires—to approve the state's $807.5 million share of a $4.037 billion settlement that avoids protracted litigation and will resolve an estimated 17, 000 claims. The other parties to the settlement are Hawaiian Electric, Kamehameha Schools, Spectrum Oceanic LLC and Hawaiian Telcom. A Hawaiian Electric power line that blew down in high winds was determined to have ignited the fire on dry, overgrown land owned by Kamehameha Schools, then raced makai to the heart of Lahaina. Hawaiian Electric provided the largest share of the settlement, at $1.99 billion. Green, America's only sitting governor who is also a medical doctor, has testified against the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become Health and Human Services secretary while privately meeting with President Donald Trump and members of Trump's administration to protect federal funding and support for Hawaii.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Dems couldn't save Biden's energy programs — so they'll try to make them a weapon against the GOP
Democrats failed to excite voters last year with the promise that former President Joe Biden's clean energy tax breaks would lower prices, expand the power grid and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. But the passage of the GOP megabill is giving them a chance to try the economic sales pitch again — this time, by warning that Republican policies will cost Americans money. That message represents an attempt by Democrats to craft a winning political argument out of President Donald Trump's newly signed tax and spending law, which eviscerated Biden-era incentives for clean technologies such as wind and solar power. It's also an effort to flip the usual partisan energy debate by portraying Republicans as the party of electricity shortages and rising prices. Their targets would include the moderate Republicans who spent months urging Congress to preserve the Biden tax breaks because of their projected economic gains for GOP-held districts — only to fold and vote for Trump's bill anyway. Trump is moving aggressively to enforce the law, ordering agencies to hasten the phase-out of green energy incentives despite a widespread consensus that the U.S. will need to ramp up electricity from all sources to meet the growing power demands of artificial intelligence. 'Democrats now have the high ground of price and Republicans are now the party of electricity shortages,' Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in an interview. 'We're just not going to have enough electrons to go around and the prices will go up — and that will be 100 percent because Republicans passed this ridiculous bill.' Schatz added that Democrats don't need to lead with their traditional message that clean energy is essential for dealing with climate change. 'The people who care about climate are already with us,' he said. Besides Schatz, Democratic climate leaders aligned on the new messaging include Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida. Eleven Democrats said in interviews that an emerging consensus in their party is cohering around a new campaign emphasizing pocketbook issues. Some of the Democrats' environmental allies are going all-in on the message. Clean Energy for America, an advocacy group, plans to plaster billboards with ads in seven swing districts attacking Republican House members who 'just voted to raise your electricity bill.' Climate Power, a Democratic-aligned strategic communications operation, launched a six-figure national advertisement playing heavily on Fox News contending that the GOP's policies renege on Trump's promise to lower prices. Republicans scoffed at the notion that Democrats will succeed in promoting themselves as energy price populists. 'It's tough for the Democrats because they've made climate their energy priority for decades,' said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former aide to then-Sen. Marco Rubio who is a partner at Firehouse Strategies. 'Voters associate liberals with prioritizing climate change over energy affordability.' Also inconvenient for the Democrats is the fact that oil prices are hovering near four-year lows, GOP strategist Ford O'Connell said. So even if Democrats cling to a message that Republican policies raise energy prices, he said, those price hikes are unlikely to show up in the real world before the midterms. 'That's just something that Democrats keep saying over and over, but it's just not going to be true because the argument defies gravity,' O'Connell said. Blaming Republicans for future energy price increases is 'too abstract,' said David Victor, an expert on climate change and energy markets who works as a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California San Diego. He added that for people who simply believe that green energy is expensive, the Democratic counterargument will be drowned out. 'People don't believe it,' he said. 'All kinds of claims are being made.' The Democrats' plans to seize on the energy argument is part of a larger effort to hammer Republicans over projections that the megabill will steer huge tax breaks to the wealthy while kicking millions of poorer Americans off Medicaid. It also recognizes the new realities of the U.S. energy markets, including the rise of AI data centers and the fact that U.S. power consumption is moving up after almost 20 years of nearly flat demand. Democrats believe the time is ripe to revive the call to speed the growth of wind and solar power — and bash the Republicans for taking the green power incentives off the table. They also contend that Trump's law will spike power prices by making renewable electricity more expensive. 'We're going to need to build assets for a growing grid. Choosing not to build things is fucking stupid,' Rep. Sean Casten (D-Illinois) said. Castor agreed with the messaging approach, adding that her Tampa-area constituents are already well aware of how climate change is affecting their lives. But when she talks to them about what's at stake in the Capitol and the White House, she said she focuses on 'higher costs, higher electric bills.' 'Bread and butter, kitchen table issues — costs, their electric bills — are not going to see relief from Republicans,' said Castor, who chaired the now-defunct House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis when Democrats controlled the House from 2020 through 2022. Of course, the jobs-and-prosperity message failed Democrats at the ballot box last year, possibly because the slow rollout of Biden's $1 trillion-plus in energy, climate and infrastructure spending meant that many of its projected economic gains had not yet appeared. The Biden administration's gargantuan spending initiatives also played little role in the campaign messaging by his would-be successor, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. One economic data point in the Democrats' favor this time: Power bills have increased an average of 9 percent since January, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, giving Democrats a chance to try to tie any utility bill increases to the Republican law. That upward pressure on prices is likely to accelerate, given that the U.S. doesn't have enough power supply to meet a nearly 20-percent projected increase in demand during the next five years. And the new Republican budget law raises costs on wind and solar — even though those sources, combined with batteries, accounted for 93 percent of all new power added to the grid last year, according to the EIA. Republicans have vowed to plug the gap with fossil fuels and nuclear energy. (Trump's new law includes policies to boost production from those sources, for example by slashing royalties for fossil fuel production on federal land.) But orders for natural gas turbines face a years-long delay. New nuclear energy faces cost challenges and long lead times. And no utility has announced plans to build new coal-fired power plants, which still face an uncertain regulatory environment and stiff competition from other energy sources. Environmental and clean energy groups have largely swung behind the economic message. One group in the pro-pocketbook crowd, Climate Power, called Republicans' bill a 'National Rate Hike' in a memo last month. It cited an analysis by the Clean Energy Buyers Association, a trade group working with data center developers, that said repealing tax credits would raise household power bills $110 annually as early as next year. But John Marshall, CEO of the Potential Energy Coalition, said the most persuasive way to get people to care about transitioning to clean energy and tackling planet-heating emissions is to talk about climate change more, not less. On a matter that may be instructive for energy policy, voters prefer positions that encourage more options, not fewer, said Marshall, whose nonpartisan, nonprofit organization conducts research on climate communication. Grounding conversations in how climate change affects pocketbooks — such as rising insurance premiums — also moves people. But talk of future jobs at the national scale sounds too theoretical, he said. 'Climate is not a dirty word,' he said. 'The smart play is to talk about the issue, but just talk about it in a slightly different way and make it relevant to different people's lives.' During last year's campaign, supporters of the Democratic policies faced 'a continual challenge' in trying to warn that Republican policies would kill future clean energy jobs and investments, said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups. But he said enough of those jobs have since materialized that it's possible to hold GOP lawmakers accountable for businesses that close or construction projects that shut down. 'The new thing is we are moving from the abstract and the conceptual to, 'This is what they did,'' Walsh said. Democrats' environmental allies also need to confront the lingering reputation of a 'green premium' that leads many people to believe that wind and solar power are expensive, said Holly Burke, spokesperson for the green group Evergreen Action. In fact, wind and solar are cheaper per megawatt-hour than coal, and in many places they're even competitive with natural gas, the United States' dominant electricity source. Those facts give Democrats a potential opening, Burke said. 'In October 2026 I'd be surprised if candidates are messaging on this specific bill, but what they will be messaging on is the impacts,' she said. 'Your utility bill is your utility bill. Folks know Trump ran on lowering electricity costs and that Republicans are in charge.'
