Warnock’s Tacit Admission His Climate Vote Hurt Georgians
While I was in the legislature I voted Nay quite a bit. And often the reason was that there was some detail in the bill that would have actually been harmful enough to prevent me from voting Yea. The bill could have been great otherwise, but, as the colloquialism goes, the devil is in the details.
In this way I was among a handful of exceptions in the legislature. Many more others would vote yes because they recognized how easily an issue could be demagogued. You voted against the police. You voted against the children. You voted against the teachers. It goes on and on. And to be honest, there is some level of truth in these claims, but there was an unrelated reason for those votes. I back the blue, support children, and have advocated for teachers. I was just not willing to sacrifice the interests of all of us because some part of the legislation was just that bad.
It takes a backbone to vote no in these circumstances, as the pressure is incredible.
Enter President Biden’s signature climate change law, misnamed the Inflation Reduction Act. Senator Warnock enthusiastically voted Yea, saying at the time, “I’m thrilled we were finally able to pass this historic, once-in-a-generation investment in our country’s future,”
Only the devil was in the details.
It turns out the law contains provisions that threaten to crater the $5.54 Billion economic development project the Kemp Administration had negotiated with Hyundai Motor Group. That project has the promise of over 8,000 jobs just west of Savannah and ironically enough were related to the production of batteries for Electric Vehicles. The AJC has quoted one Hyundai official who hoped that the deal would not be entirely scrapped, but that, “the company is going to have to make some tough calculations.” Reading between the lines, it looks like if the law is not changed that those 8,000 jobs will be inevitably be reduced by a large number.
So in a tacit admission that his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act was bad for Georgians, Senator Warnock announced his intention to introduce legislation which would carve out companies like Hyundai from the law, at least temporarily. The fine print on this effort is that his new bill is not likely to pass, leaving Hyundai exactly where it was before he made his announcement.
Georgian’s need a Senator who will look at the impact of their votes before toeing their party’s line and just going along with the herd. Every single vote needs a thoughtful analysis before pressing that button, and if it hurts Georgians our Senator needs the courage to vote no. And it is now clear that the Senator did not give thought to how the people of Georgia would be impacted by his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act. He painted himself in a box and regardless of his weak attempt to fix his bad vote, we are going to pay the price for that inattentiveness.
