There’s one more argument for Republicans to advance climate legislation now — if Democrats retake Congress, especially by large margins, they would have the opportunity to debate more liberal climate policies. Lehrer thinks a price on carbon is inevitable, and conservatives won’t always be in the driver’s seat. “I think in the long term it’s actually close to inevitable that it will pass one way or another,” he says. “It will be imposed in a way conservatives like me will not like — by Democrats — or it will be done in a way that forwards conservative goals. I like the latter.”
Real Solutions Pretending to care about climate change has never been so easy for House Republicans
Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, a conservative group that advocates for climate solutions, suggests that the wide range of ideologies actually improve the chance the caucus can advance legislation. “Like many caucuses it would be most effective if it can find common ground between people who are very far apart on a lot of things,” says Lehrer. “It’s obviously yet to produce anything major, but a caucus that is ideologically homogeneous is probably not going to do much good. A very diverse one has a better chance to produce something that could be a breakthrough eventually.”
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