South Cook News

President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act that’ll allocate $369 billion towards climate change and add a 15% corporate minimum tax; however, it garnered heated comments from Republicans.

“Just 1.3% of respondents identified Climate Change as a priority,” Keith Pekau, the Republican candidate for Illinois 6th district, wrote on Facebook. “They don’t want Sean Casten to make energy more expensive by imposing a carbon tax, and more than two-thirds of voters reject electric vehicle mandates.”

However, Pew Research Center reported that 63% of 10,957 United States adults said climate change is affecting their community.

The average price of a gallon of regular gas in Illinois is $4.227 as of Aug. 24, according to AAA, up from $3.311 one year ago. In Cook County, gas prices average $4.707 per gallon.  

Incumbent Casten voted in favor of the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act, which regulates how gas companies can create prices during times of crisis. However, the Democratic Party of Illinois noted their Republican colleagues voted against the act.

“The price of gas is unreasonably high and is causing unnecessary financial pain for Americans all across the country,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who helped introduce the act, wrote on his website. “I will not allow any corporation to use Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine as an excuse to excessively increase the price of gas. My new bill would help prevent this abuse of power and help working families keep more of their hard-earned dollars.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) summary on Aug. 10, which found that the rate of inflation over the last 12 months is 8.5%. In the last year, the cost of food has increased by 10.9%, the cost of energy has increased by 32.9%, the cost of gasoline has increased by 44%, the cost of new vehicles has increased by 10.4%, and the cost of transportation services has increased by 9.2%.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) wrote that the world is facing inflation, and it’s misleading to blame U.S. policies. EPI added the spark of the inflation controversy stemmed from massive global fiscal policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Further, the fiscal situation of most countries already would have been even worse if they had not provided the fiscal support, as their much-weakened economies would have caused tax revenues to plummet and government expenditures to automatically increase,” a paper from Moody’s Analytics noted.

A poll conducted earlier this year by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP) found that the economy and inflation are the most important issue to likely voters. 30% of survey respondents said that the economy or inflation was the most pressing issue facing the U.S., while only 1.3% of respondents said climate change was the most pressing issue. 

Another 2.5% of respondents said climate change was the second most pressing issue facing the U.S.

“Voters understand the green agenda is what is responsible for the spike in energy prices,” Stephen Moore, CTUP co-founder, said. “They don’t believe the solution to our problems is to switch to electric cars or any of the other pie-in-the-sky Biden schemes.”

While an individual driving an electric car or using less plastic won’t solve climate change alone, the government can allocate additional funding and awareness toward the effort.

“Healing the natural system is the most feasible, realistic and fair option since it would benefit humanity and all species,” Florencia Ortúzar, an attorney with AIDA’s Climate Change Program, said to AIDA in 2017. “In terms of conservation and restoration, we’re in a race against time, and we’re already beginning to witness alarming natural phenomena, like forests so degraded they’re losing their ability to absorb carbon.”

Pekau won the Republican nomination for Illinois' 6th Congressional House seat in June and will face off against Casten in the November general election, according to Ballotpedia.