Thread by @ClimateDefiance

Words fail. Words utterly fail. As we write the US Senate is advancing a bill that would defund medicaid, defund food stamps, and incinerate our earth. It would be an act of ecocide - deliberate planetary sabotage - on a scale never seen. We explain 🧵(1/17)

This is not hysteria. To give you a sense of how extreme, how ruinous, this bill is, none other than *Alex Epstein* has said it goes too far.

If you don't know Alex, he's one of the world's most notorious climate deniers and the author of "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels"(2/17)

This bill would impose a brand new tax on wind and solar projects. This tax was inserted into the bill, behind closed doors, in the dead of night this past Friday. Even the literal Chamber of Commerce, a notorious climate villain, has condemned this provision! (3/17)

The bill packs a 1-2 punch to renewables. First it strips them of their existing subsidies unless they are fully operational by 2027 (a timeline that mostly cannot be met in this regulatory environment). Then it slaps a major tax on them after that!! (4/17)

The hypocrisy is galling. On Trump's first day in office, he declared a national energy emergency, feigning concern about an energy shortage. Now he is fighting to de-subsidize - and tax - the fastest-growing, cleanest forms of energy! The destruction is the point. (5/17)

Renewable companies subject to the taxes would only be able to avoid them if they jumped through a series of hoops related to disentangling themselves from China - a task that may not be realistic given the intricacies of the global supply chain. (6/17)

How significant is this legislation? It could cause wind and solar instillation to plummet by a shocking 72% over the next decade. This is not according to an intersectional zine in Berkeley. This stat is from the Rhodium Group. (7/17)

It gets worse. The stat about the 72% drop in renewable instillations solely describes what would happen from removing the subsidies. This doesn't take into account the added impact of adding a tax on the renewables, as the bill does. (8/17)

It gets worse still. The bill would also take away tax credits for EVs and heat pumps.
(9/17)

It gets worse still. The bill would giveaway hard-earned taxpayer money to the coal industry. (10/17)

The party that spent years preaching about the "virtues of the free market" and about the pitfalls of "choosing winners and losers" is now adding taxes to renewables and giving money to coal. It's not about the principle anymore. It's just for the pollution and profit. (11/17)

Not only would this be ruinous for the climate, the rapid shift in energy strategy would also cause electricity prices to skyrocket. For the average family, the annual energy bill would jump by $400. (12/17)

On top of this, the bill would increase subsidies for biofuels, which masquerade as green, renewable energy but which, in reality, have a higher carbon footprint than gasoline once you factor in the entirety of their lifecycle emissions. (13/17)

The bill is a boondoggle for other reasons. It would blow a $3,300,000,000,000 hole in the deficit, burdening the whole country with unmanageable interest payments for decades to come. (14/17)

The House version - which is quite similar to the Senate bill - would steal thousands of dollars per year from the poorest 10% and give tens of thousands per year to the richest 10%. It's reverse Robinhood. This graph is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. (15/17)

Medicaid would be cut by over $1,000,000,000,000 dollars - forcing 11,800,000 Americans off health insurance within a decade. (16/17)

This is not a case where reasonable people can disagree. This is good versus evil. Light versus dark. Right versus wrong. This bill is a scar on the moral fabric of humanity. END. (17/17)