4 DAYS REMAINING IN THE 2024 ALABAMA LEGISLATIVE SESSION

Twinkle Cavanaugh on the Inflation Reduction Act: ‘I call it the climate socialist boondoggle’

President Joe Biden has been busy promoting the “Inflation Reduction Act” this week after U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced an agreement with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) on the $739 billion climate bill.

While Democrats argue the bill would help lower energy prices and reduce inflation, some Republican leaders across the country aren’t buying it.

Wednesday on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” Alabama Public Service Commission (PSC) President Twinkle Cavanaugh said the new bill would increase energy costs in the Yellowhammer State.

“President Biden has really made everything in our country more expensive with his energy policies,” Cavanaugh said. “His energy policies are failing the Americans right now. And when you look at the fact that right now oil is $94 a barrel — under President Trump, it was somewhere in the ballpark, when he left office, around $50 a barrel. And, you know, we get gasoline from oil.”

The commission president emphasized that it did not have to be this way in Alabama or in the country as a whole when it comes to energy prices.

“Our country is suffering right now under this Biden economy,” she argued, “and I believe it is self-inflicted in many ways, and we could do a lot to change it.”

“The worst thing, though, that could happen is this Inflation Reduction Act,” Cavanaugh said. “[T]hat’s the bill that’s right now before the Senate, I call it the climate socialist boondoggle. It has nothing to do with an Inflation Reduction Act. I think anybody would be able to tell you that you don’t print more money or give away more money and expect to reduce inflation, the opposite is the case.”

The Alabama Public Service Commission regulates Alabama Gas Company and the Alabama Power Company, which Cavanaugh said were having to increase costs because of the current prices of oil and gas.

“Neither company has been given the ability to earn even one more penny in profit,” she explained, “so this is nothing about a profit. These are just pass-through prices for fuel, for natural gas, for coal, for things that are part of the fuel makeup when it comes to power, and it would just be natural gas when it comes to the gas companies.”

She reiterated that President Biden was responsible for the current inflation and most of the increases in energy prices.

“So what’s happening is the Biden administration is making everything more expensive,” she declared, “and it’s putting a real burden on consumers and the citizens in Alabama.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee

Don’t miss out!  Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.