Federal Funding Freeze Fiasco

Dear Editor,

Power is political. The power of flowing electrons, the power that keeps your lights on at night, your cell phone charged, and your TV blaring - power generation is being politicized like never before.

The Environmental Protection Agency, under the auspices of the Biden administration and the Inflation Reduction Act, earmarked over 7$ billion dollars for the Solar For All program, aimed at rolling out more solar generation to save vulnerable low-income families on electricity costs. The Trump administration? Given their reckless disregard for common decency and the common man, you better believe they immediately froze this funding.

In fact, almost 60% of announced green energy or manufacturing projects funded by the IRA (which represented up to 85% of the total money invested and 68% of the jobs created) were in Republican congressional districts. Freezing this money is cutting off your nose to spite your face - why would our Republican representatives in any office of the government oppose the jobs, revenue, and benefits these projects cause? Why would they allow the president to recklessly destroy livelihoods and the environment?

The only cogent explanation is grandstanding and kowtowing to a leader that quite clearly has no idea how these policy decisions will impact the people he serves. But given the state of things just three weeks into Trump 2.0 - why would we expect anything less?

Sincerely,

Nathan Dombeck

Janesville, WI