The midterm election results will be pivotal for U.S. climate policy. If Republicans take back the House ( likely ) and Senate ( possibly ), they’re likely to do everything in their power to thwart President Joe Biden. And that includes derailing his ambitious climate agenda. At stake is the $370 billion in incentives for clean power, electric vehicles and pollution reduction programs included in the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed with zero Republican support. While Biden can veto any congressional effort to undo parts of the law, lawmakers can make or break the implementation of its climate programs. This isn’t the GOP’s first rodeo, either. In 2010, Republicans won back the House and immediately began undermining efforts to combat climate change. They tried to fire White House climate advisers, tanked carbon cap-and-trade negotiations and went after the Obama administration over Solyndra, a solar company that declared bankruptcy soon after receiving more than $535 million in federal loan guarantees from the 2009 stimulus bill. Last month, Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called elements in Biden’s climate bill “Solyndra on steroids.” It’s worth noting that Solyndra made up less than 2 percent of the Energy Department’s loan program, which has otherwise proved successful, even generating government revenue. Still, it ain't over til it’s over. Democrats have launched a last-gasp effort to counter Republicans’ narrative that Biden, and by extension Democrats, are to blame for high gasoline prices. Democrats are coalescing around a strategy to point fingers at the oil industry, which raked in record profits this quarter amid high inflation and consumer cost increases. And as POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Nico Portuondo writes in a story today , some political strategists say the tactic could shield candidates from GOP attacks. The truth about gas prices is much more complicated, of course, and no one entity controls costs entirely. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year catalyzed a global energy crisis, prompting a political price-of-gasoline blame game. One city that will play an outsize role in deciding which party controls the Senate is also the country’s fastest-warming one. As POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Scott Waldman writes in a story today , Reno, Nev. — home to an influential politically purple region — is an average of 10.9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the summer than it was in 1970. The Nevada Senate race may be one of the closest in the country and, along with races in Pennsylvania and Georgia, will likely determine if Republicans take control of the chamber.
| 
