Talking to Conservatives About Climate Change: The Congressional Climate Caucus

Even in a summer of record-breaking heat and disasters, Republican Presidential candidates have ignored or mocked climate change. But some conservative legislators in Congress recognize that action is necessary. Their ideas about how to tackle the problem, however, depart from the consensus that is dominant among Democrats. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who represents Iowa’s first district, is vice-chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus and a former head of the Iowa Department of Public Health. “Where there’s difference among individuals is with what urgency people believe there needs to be change. I believe that having rapid change without having affordable, available energy is not a solution,” she tells David Remnick. Miller-Meeks extols innovation in the private sector, but feels that mandates on electric vehicles would drive up costs too much for rural consumers. With a goal of reducing fossil-fuel consumption, she says, environmentalists need to reconsider their desire to remove hydroelectric dams to restore river habitats, and their opposition to nuclear-power generation. They should expedite mining for copper, uranium, and rare earth minerals, despite the environmental risks. “You have an Inflation Reduction Act which on one hand says you need to domestically source minerals,” she notes, “yet we won’t allow permitting.” More broadly, she feels that the alarms sounded by environmental scientists have failed to convince the public. “Every time we advance that there is a crisis and there is doom, and it doesn’t materialize, scientists, and we as political leaders, and people who are advancing policy, lose credibility.”