This story was originally published byguardianAnd here it is reproduced as part of that.Climate Deskcollaboration
Donald TrumpAt a recent rally, he went on a long rant about how low shower pressure made it too long to wash his “beautiful, full hair,” and he highlighted how he and the Republican Party have been escalating attacks on even the most dubious environmental policies. The move is starting to have an impact on voters.
Trump, in his bid to return to the White House, has denounced Joe Biden’s push to develop electric cars in the United States as “madness,” claiming such vehicles don’t work in the cold and their supporters should “rot in hell.” He has called offshore wind turbines “horrible,” falsely linking them to whale deaths, and pledged to eliminate incentives for both wind and electric cars.
But the former U.S. president and convicted felon, who publicly solicited donations from oil and gas executives to pursue industry-friendly priorities if re-elected, has led a much broader assault on many of the everyday rules and technologies that make water and energy efficient.
At a rally in Philadelphia in June, Trump claimed that Americans struggle with “no water coming out of the faucet” when they want to wash their hands or hair. “You turn it on, and it just drips,” he said. “You can’t get it off your hands. So you have to leave it on 10 times longer.” Trump complained that it takes 45 minutes to wash his “beautiful, full hair” and that his dishwasher won’t work because “they won’t let you drink the water.”
Trump’s niche obsession is nothing new. He complained that he had to flush toilets 10 times during his presidency and that new energy-efficient light bulbs made them look “orange.” His administration later rolled back efficiency standards for toilets, showers, and light bulbs, and Biden has since restored them.
But Republicans in Congress are now following Trump’s lead by introducing a series of bills in the House that would target energy efficiency standards for appliances. The bills, with names like the “Laundry Freedom Act,” the “Refrigerator Freedom Act,” and the “Dryer Reliability Act,” are the result of conservatives’ outrage over the Biden administration’s fabricated and unfounded claims that it would ban gas stoves, and they have prompted additional GOP legislation.
“No government official should be trying to take away Americans’ appliances in the name of a radical environmental agenda, but that’s exactly what we’ve seen from the Biden administration,” said Rep. Debbie Lasco, a Republican and sponsor of the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, which passed the House in May and would have limited new efficiency rules for appliances. The bill has no chance of getting a deal in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Bipartisan support for renewable energy is weakening after President Trump launched bizarre and misleading attacks on wind power, electric cars and energy efficiency standards.
“We’re seeing a lot of advances, like cleaner cars and more efficient appliances, get swallowed up in the culture wars,” said Ed Maybach, a public health and climate communications expert at George Mason University.
“Most Americans instinctively think that these are good things, but it’s clear that Donald Trump and others think there’s a political advantage to be had in convincing people that this isn’t true. These voters are being told by people they really shouldn’t trust.”
In the United States, political divisions over the climate crisis have been deepening for years, with Trump calling global warming a “hoax” and downplaying the devastating devastation it is causing. The former president said last month that “basically, we’re going to see a little bit more coastal land” in terms of the impacts of rising sea levels.
In last week’s presidential debate, Trump boasted, without evidence, that he had achieved “the best environmental numbers ever” as president while calling the Paris climate accord a “fraud” and a “disaster.” Biden slammed his opponent, saying he hadn’t done “a damn thing” on the climate crisis.
Despite these divisions, there has long been strong bipartisan support among all voters for renewable energy such as solar and wind, and most of the clean energy jobs and investments spurred by Biden’s flagship climate bill have flowed to rural Republican areas. But that support has begun to wane since Trump’s attacks, Maybach and colleagues found.
A new poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center underscores this trend. Support for new solar farms has fallen to 78% of all Americans, down from 90% just four years ago. Support for expanding wind power has fallen by a similar amount, and interest in buying electric vehicles is significantly lower than a year ago, with just 29% saying they would consider an EV in 2023, down from 38% in 2023.
Maybach said the shift is happening as Republican support among voters declines, adding that clean energy and cars have become as controversial as global warming for many conservatives. “Support for clean energy has been around for a long time in both Republican and Democratic circles, but it’s starting to erode,” he said.
“It’s a trend that’s been developing for at least the last five years. There’s a tug-of-war going on between what people’s instincts tell them and what the voices in their trusted communities tell them.”
