ICYMI: Rep. Huffman Joins Speaker Pelosi for Telephone Town Hall on Build Back Better Act
Huffman and Pelosi Responded Live to Constituent Questions
December 16, 2021
Washington, D.C. – Earlier this month, Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a Telephone Town Hall to discuss Democrats’ work to Build Back Better For The People, including historic investments in families, health care, and combating the climate crisis. Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Huffman were also joined by special guest, California’s Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris.
Click here to listen to a recording of the December 2 Telephone Town Hall.
Tele-Town Hall Highlights
“We are in a race against time with this climate crisis,” Rep. Huffman said. “With the Build Back Better Act having cleared the House last month and being poised for passage out of the Senate this month [we hope] we are closer than ever to actually producing climate action that finally matches the scale and the urgency of this global crisis. In doing that, we will create millions of great jobs and help position the United States as the global leader on clean energy and climate solutions in the 21st century.”
“Everyone on this call, for their entire lives, has been part of an economy where we were almost entirely dependent on the tender mercies of the fossil fuel industry to power a lot of our economy and almost all of our transportation,” Huffman said. “As we think about this fossil fuel rollercoaster, which has always taken us into wild gyrations of prices and gouging adventures […] with the tyranny of the pump, […] our answer can’t be to double down on the same fossil fuel rollercoaster. At some point, we have got to get off of the rollercoaster, and the Build Back Better Act is our best chance, in my life and certainly in the last century, I would say, to finally get off that dysfunctional rollercoaster.”
“Passing the Build Back Better Act is going to have a profound, positive impact well beyond our own borders. The world is watching our country right now very closely,” said Huffman.
Question and Answer
Caller: “We in California have a tradition and history of being the most innovative region in the world, in particular the Bay Area. I am wondering if the Build Back Better plan has any language about incentivizing and really leveraging the talent pool here in California in particular to tackle the problems that are ahead in climate change?”
Rep. Huffman: “I definitely think that innovation in the Bay Area will benefit from the provisions in the Build Back Better Act. Broadly, the incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency are going to reward the companies and the innovators that they hire who are successful and able to step in and do that work. We also have specific tax credits that go to carbon removal technology, some of which is still be invented and pioneered as we speak. This is a forward-looking innovation. We have got green energy partnerships that are going to get tax advantages that used to only be provided for fossil fuel partnerships so that levels the playing field for innovators to get in there and do their good work. There are a number of others: renewable fuels, biodiesel, alternative fuels, and lots of funding available mainly through the tax code. There is just a whole bunch of R&D and innovation wound up in all of that.
“As I conclude this answer, let me just say Speaker Pelosi honors me by deferring to me on these questions about some of the climate matters, but she takes a backseat to no one on climate action, climate policy, and leadership. I have seen that in the way she has helped steer this legislation with a very slim majority in the House over the threshold and I have seen it at two Global Climate Summits now where I have joined her. She is truly a great leader. For everyone on this call from San Francisco, you are fortunate to have a climate leader second to none as your representative.”
Background
The Build Back Better Act contains key investments that Rep. Huffman has fought for in his role on the House Natural Resources and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees, including:
-
An end to fossil fuel leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
-
An end to new offshore fossil fuel leasing in federal waters along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
-
$27.15 billion in investments in forestry programs to help combat forest fires and contribute to healthy, resilient forests.
-
Including $500 million for wildfire management.
-
$1 billion for Pacific salmon restoration and conservation.
-
A number of investments for Tribes, including $945 million for Indian Health Service health facility construction, maintenance, and improvement; $500 million for tribal and Native Hawaiian climate resilience and adaptation; $490 million for tribal public safety and justice; and $25 million for emergency drought relief for tribes.
-
Measures to raise public money, including:
-
Directing the Department of the Interior (DOI) to hold offshore wind lease sales in federal waters around American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands,
-
Requiring DOI to hold offshore wind lease sales in federal waters in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida,
-
Increasing outdated oil and gas royalty rates and fees.
-
$2.57 billion to purchase electric vehicles for the United States Postal Service and $3.41 billion in charging and support infrastructure.
-
Changes to the tax code to ensure that water conservation rebates are not taxed.
Washington, D.C. – Earlier this month, Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a Telephone Town Hall to discuss Democrats’ work to Build Back Better For The People, including historic investments in families, health care, and combating the climate crisis. Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Huffman were also joined by special guest, California’s Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris.
Click here to listen to a recording of the December 2 Telephone Town Hall.
Tele-Town Hall Highlights
“We are in a race against time with this climate crisis,” Rep. Huffman said. “With the Build Back Better Act having cleared the House last month and being poised for passage out of the Senate this month [we hope] we are closer than ever to actually producing climate action that finally matches the scale and the urgency of this global crisis. In doing that, we will create millions of great jobs and help position the United States as the global leader on clean energy and climate solutions in the 21st century.”
“Everyone on this call, for their entire lives, has been part of an economy where we were almost entirely dependent on the tender mercies of the fossil fuel industry to power a lot of our economy and almost all of our transportation,” Huffman said. “As we think about this fossil fuel rollercoaster, which has always taken us into wild gyrations of prices and gouging adventures […] with the tyranny of the pump, […] our answer can’t be to double down on the same fossil fuel rollercoaster. At some point, we have got to get off of the rollercoaster, and the Build Back Better Act is our best chance, in my life and certainly in the last century, I would say, to finally get off that dysfunctional rollercoaster.”
“Passing the Build Back Better Act is going to have a profound, positive impact well beyond our own borders. The world is watching our country right now very closely,” said Huffman.
Question and Answer
Caller: “We in California have a tradition and history of being the most innovative region in the world, in particular the Bay Area. I am wondering if the Build Back Better plan has any language about incentivizing and really leveraging the talent pool here in California in particular to tackle the problems that are ahead in climate change?”
Rep. Huffman: “I definitely think that innovation in the Bay Area will benefit from the provisions in the Build Back Better Act. Broadly, the incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency are going to reward the companies and the innovators that they hire who are successful and able to step in and do that work. We also have specific tax credits that go to carbon removal technology, some of which is still be invented and pioneered as we speak. This is a forward-looking innovation. We have got green energy partnerships that are going to get tax advantages that used to only be provided for fossil fuel partnerships so that levels the playing field for innovators to get in there and do their good work. There are a number of others: renewable fuels, biodiesel, alternative fuels, and lots of funding available mainly through the tax code. There is just a whole bunch of R&D and innovation wound up in all of that.
“As I conclude this answer, let me just say Speaker Pelosi honors me by deferring to me on these questions about some of the climate matters, but she takes a backseat to no one on climate action, climate policy, and leadership. I have seen that in the way she has helped steer this legislation with a very slim majority in the House over the threshold and I have seen it at two Global Climate Summits now where I have joined her. She is truly a great leader. For everyone on this call from San Francisco, you are fortunate to have a climate leader second to none as your representative.”
Background
The Build Back Better Act contains key investments that Rep. Huffman has fought for in his role on the House Natural Resources and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees, including:
-
An end to fossil fuel leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
-
An end to new offshore fossil fuel leasing in federal waters along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
-
$27.15 billion in investments in forestry programs to help combat forest fires and contribute to healthy, resilient forests.
-
Including $500 million for wildfire management.
-
$1 billion for Pacific salmon restoration and conservation.
-
A number of investments for Tribes, including $945 million for Indian Health Service health facility construction, maintenance, and improvement; $500 million for tribal and Native Hawaiian climate resilience and adaptation; $490 million for tribal public safety and justice; and $25 million for emergency drought relief for tribes.
-
Measures to raise public money, including:
-
Directing the Department of the Interior (DOI) to hold offshore wind lease sales in federal waters around American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands,
-
Requiring DOI to hold offshore wind lease sales in federal waters in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida,
-
Increasing outdated oil and gas royalty rates and fees.
-
$2.57 billion to purchase electric vehicles for the United States Postal Service and $3.41 billion in charging and support infrastructure.
-
Changes to the tax code to ensure that water conservation rebates are not taxed.
Next Article Previous Article