Earlier this year, Democratic Senator Chris van Hollen, introduced a piece of legislation
called Make Polluters Pay. Now that piece of legislation is still kicking around out
there, and it's something that desperately needs to be passed and according to a new
poll, a majority of people in this country actually agree with this legislation. What
the legislation would do is it would create a fund of about $500 billion, all of that
money would come from the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage they have caused to
the climate. You know, it would be used to tackle climate change abatement, you know,
it would be used to help green the US economy. It would basically try to undo the damage
to a degree, obviously 500 billion is not enough to do all of it, but it would make
these people pay because they're the ones who are responsible for the majority of emissions.
So it's a pretty smart piece of legislation. And new poll shows majority of voters in the
United States support it. 77% of likely voters say fossil fuel companies should take a lot
or some responsibility in addressing the climate crisis. 65% support the idea of the fund.
And here's where it gets a little, little iffy here. When you break it down by party
affiliation, 83% of Democrats support the legislation.
There is a 40 point gap and not, that's not even a gap that is a gulf between Democrats
and Republicans because only 43% of Republicans think we should do it. But I think using the
word only there is bad, 43% of Republicans, almost half support this idea. So you have
more than 80% of Democrats who want it, nearly half of Republicans who want it. When you
put them all together, you've got 65% of the country saying yes, do this thing and that
to me is the part we need to focus on because I don't think only 43% of Republicans, you
know, supporting this is a good talking point. I think the fact that we have Republicans
serving in DC that are so adamantly against any form of, you know, climate action, to
be honest, but 43% of their voters are out there saying no, no, no, no, no. Make these
guys pay. And I think part of the reason we're seeing this has to do with the fact that we're
also seeing climate change right now. All year long, we have watched one extreme weather
event to another, to another, to another, to another. Snow storms in Texas, knocking
out the power grid. Heat domes over the Western United States. Wildfires, floods, droughts,
other extreme weather events, sea, seawall erosion, sea level rise. We are living through
the effects of climate change right now. And it's getting harder for more and more
voters out there to say that we shouldn't do something about this. The only holdup really
is DC, is the House and the Senate. A lot of it is coming from Republicans. Most of
it is coming from Republicans, but not all of it is. We still have a couple of Democrats
out there who value their fossil fuel money more than they value the lives of their own
constituents. And therein lies the problem, not just with the Democrats, but clearly with
the Republicans, as well. As long as fossil fuel money is allowed to dominate politics
we're going to be stuck dragging our feet. We're going to be stuck with inaction. And
that is why I want every single person running for office to truly look into your opponent
and where their finances are coming from. If they're taking money from the fossil fuel
industry, you need to call them out in ads and juxtapose that with the extreme weather
events that we have seen just so far in 2021. Go ahead. It's okay. We, we can do this. It's
okay to point out to a country that wants action, that your opponent is taking all this
money. It's okay to do that. And in fact, the climate kind of depends on you doing that.
Call them out so we can vote them out so we can finally move forward.