The Investment in Our Planet That We Need

The theme for the 53rd Earth Day last Saturday was a timely one: Invest in Our Planet. This country has just begun to do that through the infrastructure and clean energy packages that President Biden and Congress approved in 2021 and 2022.

More money than we spent getting astronauts to the Moon will be spent in the next decade transforming our econ- omy. We're moving from an economy that destroys places and people with pollution and climate threats to one that can lift them up everywhere. We have the technology and the demand, and now the federal investment, to power your house for less, to power your car for less, and to create good jobs that will last because they aren't killing the planet.

Earlier in the week, we saw how misguided the opposition is to this commitment to a healthier, safer world powered by abundant sources when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave a speech at the New York Stock Exchange. That's Ground Zero for private sector investing in this country, if not the world.

He made clear that he and his colleagues don't want to begin a renewal of the American economy through cleaner jobs. They want instead to make things easier for the fossil fuel companies that raked in a record $200 billion in profits in 2022.

McCarthy, in fact, said he's willing to risk the full faith and credit of the United States to extend our reliance on the dirtiest and most volatile ener- chive, which keeps track of mass shootings in the U.S. where four or more victims are killed or injured by guns, notes that there have been more than 165 mass shootings so far in 2023 — more than one a day. On April 15 there were seven mass shootings, the most in a single day so far this year. So the devastating mass injuries and deaths at a birthday party that night were heartbreaking, but they were not unusual for America. But those stories about the "everyday" trauma and tragedy of mass shootings were also joined this week

"Consumers also sometimes reported that they met the disclosed terms of credit card reward offers, but the rewards were not given. Some consumers said they applied for credit cards that included account opening bonuses, but the reward bonuses were not issued. Other consumers reported that they lost accrued awards when their credit cards were closed."

But CFPB found credit repair questions had the greatest percent-

CROWELL Page 56 by the latest headlines about a series of "mistake" shootings.

On April 13 in Kansas City, Missouri, 16-year-old honors student and musician Ralph Yarl was shot in the head and arm after mistakenly ringing the wrong doorbell while trying to pick up his younger brothers from a friend's home. The man who shot him said that when the 5'8", 140-lb. teenager came to his door, he looked out and saw a 6-foot-tall Black man and felt

EDELMAN Page 57 gy sources and push even more money into the pockets of Big Oil and Gas. He told those investors and financiers in New York that he would tie support for raising the federal debt ceiling — how much we can borrow to pay what we already owe — to a grab bag of giveaways to corporate polluters in their energy package.

He's taking us hostage in this way because he knows that an energy bill will never become law if it undermines longstanding environmental laws that give the public a say in new projects and permits, if it cuts a new program to slow climate change by reducing methane emissions, and if it eliminates help to disadvantaged communities to get the low- and zero-emission technology they want. His bill does all that damage and more.

He said he was looking forward when what he described will lock us in a gas-powered economy that we can't afford. The idea that oil and gas companies need more help can't stand up to the facts that they've made more than ever, and they already have the

Guest Columnist

Lauren C. Vaughan