Mike Johnson finds himself in a politically tricky predicament. The House speaker, who has been tasked with tearing apart Democrats’ 2022 climate law, attempted to first reap its rewards. The Louisiana Republican made a personal plea to the Environmental Protection Agency last year to award a city in his district an environmental justice grant funded through the Inflation Reduction Act — the behemoth clean energy, climate and health law that not-a-one Republican voted for, writes Kelsey Brugger. Specifically, Johnson wrote a letter to EPA on Nov. 15 asking the agency to support efforts by the city of Minden and Louisiana Tech University, which he referred to as their “Empowering Communities with Innovative Solutions to Reduce Pollution, Build Climate Resilience and Improve Public Health Project.” The project “is designed to focus on water quality and sustainability ... specifically targeting underserved communities in north Louisiana,” Johnson wrote. The private appeal highlights a growing tension within the Republican Party: Support President-elect Donald Trump’s mission to claw back as much Biden administration climate funding as possible, or buy a collective nose plug and enjoy the financial benefits headed largely to Republican-controlled districts? Naturally, members are divided. And Johnson — who in September said he would attack the law with a “scalpel” not “sledgehammer” — will have to contend with the warring factions within his conference sooner rather than later. House Republicans are already ramping up oversight of the law’s programs, promising, for example, to recover as much funding as possible from the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (or, as they call it, the Green New Deal slush fund). Members are also at odds over exactly how much of the climate law’s subsidies and grants to ax in order to pay for an extension of Trump’s multitrillion-dollar 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of the year. So how is Johnson’s private dalliance with the climate law’s benefits landing with his members? Also mixed. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) defended Johnson, telling Kelsey “he’s up here to represent his people, and they need to hear his voice.” But the sticky situation gave pause to Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who said: “I would have a hard time advocating for a program to be funded in a program I was also advocating cutting.”
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