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Unfreeze money for green energy

The Inflation Reduction Act has been the most consequential legislation ever passed to speed the migration of the United States from fossil fuels, which I believe harm the planet, to the use of green energy solutions for the rapidly increasing demand for electricity. The spread of wind and solar farms, the availability of electric vehicles and charging stations, and tax incentives for household items like heat pumps have all been pushed by the act.

We now have an administration in Washington that is trying to stop that migration. Projects that have been announced in the districts represented by U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly and Glenn Thompson but have yet to be started total almost $1.9 billion; and the government’s executive branch has frozen the funding for these and other “green” projects across the country that add up to more than $267 billion.

This is not the way the government is supposed to work. Under the U.S. Constitution, it’s Congress that possesses the “power of the purse.” Congress previously authorized the expenditures; and many projects are either under construction or completed and operating.

To gain the benefits of the “funded but frozen” projects, from both the dollars to be spent and the corresponding jobs that will be created, I urge you to let Reps. Kelly and Thompson, and the rest of Congress, know that you want them to take back their authority and get these valuable projects unfrozen and underway.

Bruce Cooper, Cranberry Township, leader of Slippery Rock chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby

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