unfuckingbelievable

Some said they worried that California’s planned ban on gas-powered vehicles would raise the price of cars. Another cited “intense and misleading lobbying” by the oil industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/climate/democrats-california-ban-electric-vehicles.html

Representative Lou Correa, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange County, Calif., drives a hybrid car and wants the federal government to tackle climate change.

But he joined 34 other Democrats last week to help Republicans repeal his state’s landmark requirement that all new vehicles sold in California be electric or otherwise nonpolluting by 2035. In doing so, he helped President Trump and the Republican majority to undercut the nation’s transition away from gasoline-powered cars.

“I don’t like giving Trump a win,” Mr. Correa said in an interview after the vote. But electric vehicles remain expensive and impractical in his heavily blue-collar district, he said.

“We just finished an election where every poll I’m seeing, everybody I talk to, says, ‘You guys need to listen to the working class, the middle class people,’” Mr. Correa said. “I’m listening to my constituents who are saying ‘don’t kill us.’”

snip

My thoughts:

Many (in bold) of the 35 Dem Yeas were the centrists and conservadems (many of those are No Labels Problem Solvers) and/or those Dems who simply disappointingly too often vote with the Rethugs (in italics). Many of ones listed below also voted for the racist Laken Riley Act.

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025114

Representative Party State Vote

Beatty Democratic
OH Yea
Bishop Democratic
GA Yea
Budzinski Democratic
IL Yea
Bynum Democratic
OR Yea
Correa Democratic
CA Yea
Cuellar Democratic
TX Yea
Davids (KS) Democratic
KS Yea
Davis (NC) Democratic
NC Yea
Figures Democratic
AL Yea
Gillen Democratic
NY Yea
Golden (ME) Democratic
ME Yea
Gonzalez, V. Democratic
TX Yea
Horsford Democratic
NV Yea
Johnson (TX) Democratic
TX Yea
Kaptur Democratic
OH Yea
Kennedy (NY) Democratic
NY Yea
Landsman Democratic
OH Yea
Lee (NV) Democratic
NV Yea
McDonald Rivet Democratic
MI Yea
Morelle Democratic
NY Yea
Moskowitz Democratic
FL Yea
Mrvan Democratic
IN Yea
Perez Democratic
WA Yea
Riley (NY) Democratic
NY Yea
Ryan Democratic
NY Yea
Scholten Democratic
MI Yea
Sewell Democratic
AL Yea
Soto Democratic
FL Yea
Suozzi Democratic
NY Yea
Thanedar Democratic
MI Yea
Thompson (MS) Democratic
MS Yea
Vasquez Democratic
NM Yea
Veasey Democratic
TX Yea
Vindman Democratic
VA Yea
Whitesides Democratic
CA Yea

not overtly dispute the Republican characterization of the Democrats' earlier party. No Democrat I can name called for getting rid of all gas stoves, cars and heating.

I would characterize what they did as two things. The first was to use tax credits to encourage shifts to clean energy. By decreasing the difference in price of an electric car or sometimes hybrids, it reduced the premium between them and gas powered cars The second thing was to regulate power plants to control carbon and methane has emissions. Here, because those decisions are made years before and impact many years in the future, it is not clear decision making won't still favor cleaner technology.

Another factor is that we live in a global world. Although it is not good for our economy, it is good to read about the progress China has made in creating good affordable electric vehicles and improving how long it takes to charge them. As I am in my 70s, I remember how the cars most people I knew shifted from American cars to Japanese.

of Democrats currently working against, rolling back, or resisting effective climate change legislation? I don't have a subscription to the Times and am unable to infer from the the material provided.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/climate/democrats-climate-change-oil-gas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pVA.r__z.8sv250FpkTwX&smid=url-share

https://www.eia.gov/TODAYINENERGY/detail.php?id=63824

https://www.eenews.net/articles/what-bidens-oil-record-means-for-the-industrys-future/

...so called "renewable energy" as a way to address the use of fossil fuels. However the reactionary stance of this approach, making our energy supplies depend on the weather at a time the weather has been destabilized hasn't worked, isn't working and won't work.

There are Democrats signing on to what will work, nuclear energy. My own Governor, Mikie Sherrill is among them; Gretchen Whitmer is another.

Fossil fuels are incredibly destructive but they are some things that so called "renewable energy" aren't, reliable and energy dense.

The 30 most reliable power plants in the United States are nuclear plants. They are also the cleanest and safest power plants in the United Stares.

I have been a Democrat my whole adult life and I've suffered under the weight of antinukism among us for much of it.

I will not live long enough to see the sea change on this issue but "I've been to the mountain top" to steal a Kingian line.

The collapse of the planetary atmosphere is the most profound crisis in human history in my view, although many seem not to agree. Our party understands that it is an issue, perhaps not with the exigency that I see, but we need to open our eyes to what must be done to address it. Energy poverty is not an answer, and if we try to sell it as so we will fail.

Last edited Thu Jun 11, 2026, 05:25 PM - Edit history (1)

... it's only as as safe, or dangerous, as we make it, and the uninformed FEAR that people have has to be softened to informed caution for us to get ahead. The effects of fossil fuels are just as pernicious but people know about "fire=energy" and can't see the ash ponds, etc, while "atomic=BOOM" is ingrained by 80 years of Hollywood and the media.

...which is fossil fuel waste, we might not have so much caterwauling about so called "nuclear waste."

Used nuclear fuel, once through fuel, has a spectacular record of not killing anyone year after year, while fossil fuel waste, also known as "air pollution," kills millions upon millions of people each year without a peep from people whining about so called "nuclear waste."

Used nuclear fuel is, in fact, a critical resource for the future, in particular with respect to the transuranium elements neptunium, plutonium, and to a lesser extent, americium. We now have accumulated enough of these valuable elements to make a difference. We need them and need them badly.

You know how funders are.

Like Big Oil, AIPAC knows how to get results too.

On the Republican side they'd rather deny that global warming is a danger to us all. On our side we'd rather hear soothing lies about renewable energy and transitions.

We could quit fossil fuels in fifteen years if we approached the problem with the same energy we put into defeating the Nazis and Imperial Japan but that would involve lifestyle changes that most of us are unwilling to accept.

Now it's just a question of how bad do things have to get? It's quite possible we'll keep pretending everything is all right up until the day our twenty first century world civilization collapses entirely.

While some jobs were created in renewables over the years, a lot of the money that gets lent out or distributed as grants goes to politically connected companies, that make a few at the top very wealthy while retail investors and taxpayers get screwed. Sorry, I’m tired of subsidizing the “next big thing” whether it’s scam Altman or some perpetual motion bullshit CEO.

What’s worse is that it’s not doing much to alleviate the effects of climate change, and these policies are actually regressive. They also don’t move the needle when it comes to electoral politics.

Sorry, please explain the logic in giving money to upper middle class professionals to buy electric cars? It’s fucking shit policy and worse politics. Glad Democrats are waking up.

If you want to whine, come and pay for gas and utilities here in California. We’re supposedly so progressive but we have tent cities and people commute two hours for a job because they can’t afford housing. Don’t forget people dying because they can’t afford health insurance. Focus on things like that and guess what? You’ll win. Keep the message focused and stop diluting it.