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CLIMATE: Celebrate baby steps

| May 19, 2021 1:00 AM

I’m eating my words.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote The Press lamenting that conservative thinking has not been applied to climate change. Well, that very week Sen. Crapo announced a discussion brief he is co-sponsoring.

The Energy Innovation Act is a bill to cut taxes on those industries that take steps to lower CO2 emissions. It is conservative thinking — a tax cut — AND it helps address climate change. That kind of thinking brings solutions.

No, that’s not going to solve it all. But Democrats have to quit waiting for a pie-in-the sky comprehensive plan. If we want to learn to run, we have to cheer each baby step.

This discussion paper is that first reach upward to the world of adulthood. Conservatives look at people’s jobs and livelihood today. That’s good. And environmentalists remind us that climate is the source of jobs and livelihoods of the future. That’s good too.

Economy and ecology are the same subject; both mean taking care of the home. Good management takes attention to immediate and to future needs. And, at least one conservative Republican is not standing on the sidelines of climate change exchanging barbs across an abyss we nicely call an “aisle.”

The proposed Energy Innovation Act is a bipartisan dive into the hard work and the detail. So you’ve got me eating crow, Senator. Please keep it up and just pass me some catsup.

MIKE BULLARD

Coeur d’Alene