FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2020 file photo, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, speaks during a news conference near Neffs Canyon, in Salt Lake City. Romney was named the winner of the Profile in Courage Award on Friday, March 26, 2021, for splitting with his party and becoming the only Republican to vote to convict former President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial. “I’m very appreciative of the honor, but also humbled by it,” Romney told NBC's “Today” show in an interview aired Friday. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
In 1990, Congress approved an amendment to the 1970 -air air law, among other things that take measures against acid rains, urban smog and ozone.
The legislation was very successful, largely reducing pollution at a much lower cost than commercial interest groups had predicted it. Sometimes I see people trying to use acidic rains as an example of environmental alarmism: hey, it was a big problem in the 1980s, but now almost nobody talks about it. But the reason we are not talking about is that politics has largely solved the problem.
However, what is really surprising from today's point of view is the fact that the 1990 legislation approved Congress with overwhelming and bipartite majorities. Among those who voted, yes, there was a first -term Kentucky senator called Mitch McConnell.
It was then. It is now: the law on the reduction of inflation, which, despite its name, is mainly a climate bill with a side that helps in health reform, has not received a single republican vote. Now, IRA is not a plan on the left to insert a great government into everyone's life: that does not force Americans to become ecological; It is based on subsidies to promote low dissemination technologies, probably creating many new jobs. So why the opposition of the country's republican party?
The immediate response is that the Republican Party has become strongly anti-environmental over time. But why?
ThePew Research Center surveys show the large partisan division of environmental policy. In the 1990s, self-identified Republicans and Democrats were not so different in their environmental points: Republicans were less likely than Democrats to say that we should do everything necessary to protect the environment, more likely To say that it says that the environment the regulations are harming the economy, but the holes were relatively modest.
Since then, however, these shortcomings have been extended in the abyss, and not symmetrically: Democrats have become a little more favorable to environmental action, but the Republicans have become much less favorable.
Most of the divergence is quite recent, because it has taken place since around 2008. I cannot help but point to revolutionary technological progress in renewable energies making the programs less expensive than ever.
Republican voters can take their signals from politicians and media personalities. So why have conservative opinion leaders become anti-environment?
It is not a question of believing in free markets and the opposition to the intervention of the government. One of the most striking aspects of recent energy disputes is the extent to which Republicans have tried to use the power of the state to promote polluting energy even when the private sector prefers alternatives. The Trump administration tried, without success, forcing the electrical services to continue to burn coal, even when other energy sources were cheaper. Currently, as the New York Times reported, many republican state treasurers are trying to punish banks and other companies that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
What about the cynical vision that the republican party is simply in the pocket of fossil interests? Obviously, money speaks and the contributions of coal and, to a lesser extent, petroleum and gas are mainly due to the Republicans. But the law on the reduction of inflation, which will open many commercial opportunities, has been supported by several major companies, including energy companies such as BP and Shell. The Republicans did not move.
What happened, it would be said, is that environmental policy was taken in the cultural war, which in turn is largely motivated by the problems of race and ethnicity. I suspect that this is why the partisan division in the environment has developed both after the United States has elected its first black president.
.A particularly notable aspect of the Times research report on state punishment societies seeking to limit greenhouse gas emissions is the way in which these civil servants condemn companies such as "awakening" .
ignorance normally means speaking of racial and social justice. On the right, which is increasingly defined by attempts to limit the rights of Americans who are not heterosexual white Christians, it has become a term of abuse. Teaching students the role of racism in the history of the United States is bad because it has awakened. But, apparently, there are many other things, such as Cracker Barrel that offer meatless sausages and concerned about climate change.
It may not have much intellectually meaning, but you can see how it works emotionally. Who tends to worry about the environment? Often, people who also care about social justice, the world's elites. (Climate science is largely a global company).
Even the Republicans who must better know do not break with the anti-and party position. As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney had a decent environmental history; However, he joined all the other Republican members of the Congress to vote against anger.
This means that those who expect bipartite efforts in time are probably mistaken. Environmental protection is now part of the cultural war, and neither the details of the policy nor the rational argument are important.
Paul Krugman is a columnist for the New York Times.