DAVID BLACKMON: Why Climate Lobby Fears American Citizens Deciding Elections

As the Senate debate on the SAVE America Act kicked off Tuesday, it was quite interesting to observe which factions were lining up for and against the bill.

E&E News dropped a gem highlighting the actions of one faction titled “Why climate champions are sweating the ‘SAVE America Act.’” The piece depicts a meltdown mode gripping environmental groups and their Democratic allies in Congress over the bill, sponsored by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy.

Why exactly are these self-appointed saviors of the planet so panicked? The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act does one simple thing: it affirms that only U.S. citizens get to vote in U.S. federal elections. That’s it. No energy policy mandates. No green subsidies, no tax breaks for anyone. Just common-sense election integrity.

The bill requires documentary proof of citizenship — think passport, birth certificate, or equivalent REAL ID-compliant document — to register to vote. It mandates photo identification at the ballot box in every state. And it directs states to proactively scrub non-citizens from existing voter rolls while ending mail-only registration loopholes.

So why the collective sweat from the climate lobby? The answer seems obvious – they know their radical agenda is unpopular with U.S. citizens.

League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Democracy Program Director Justin Kwasa spelled it out with stunning clarity. The bill, he warned, would hit hardest on “low-income Americans, people of color, rural residents, LGBTQ+ individuals and families displaced by natural disasters” – all the prepared talking points being parroted on the political left. The implication is insulting: That these traditional Democrat Party voting blocs don’t drive, don’t buy groceries, don’t enroll their children in school, don’t participate in U.S. society in the same ways all other citizens do.

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was even more blunt, admitting the bill is “purpose-built to suppress the Democratic vote.” Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey piled on, claiming Republicans want to “lock in all of their regressive substantive policy” by denying Democrats “the gavels.”

Huh?

We’re talking about having a valid driver’s license – do Democrat voters not drive? We’re talking about having a valid Social Security number – do Democrat voters not have those? We’re talking about having a valid birth certificate – were Democrat voters not born?

Many Democratic politicians have claimed in recent weeks they don’t know where their birth certificates are and have no idea how to get a copy of it. Millions of regular Americans – many of them no doubt Democratic voters – have faced this exact problem in their lives and solved it with a simple 10-second web search. It isn’t hard, even for Democrats. I promise. This is silliness.

Lee delivered the perfect clapback: “The only way the SAVE America Act would make it less likely that Green New Scam candidates get elected is if their victories depend on illegal non-citizen voting. If they’re panicked about that, perhaps they should try appealing to American voters.”

And that’s it, exactly. This hysteria exposes the climate lobby’s dirty little secret. They’ve spent years claiming overwhelming public support for their anti-energy crusade. Yet when you strip away the polling gimmicks and ask actual citizens to vote on policies that skyrocket electricity bills, destroy reliable coal and natural gas jobs, and force unreliable wind and solar onto the grid – with all the bird-chopping, tree-cutting, land condemning, and subsidy sucking that entails – support collapses.

That’s why LCV is already threatening to score votes on this bill in its annual scorecard. Their dream of net-zero fantasies by some arbitrary date requires raw political power maintained by any means necessary. Citizenship verification and photo ID threaten that power base. What else do we need to know?

Meanwhile, polls show overwhelming support for these basic safeguards: 83 percent of Americans – including huge majorities of Democrats, Hispanics, and Black Americans – back photo ID to vote.

The climate lobby’s agenda is fundamentally unpopular with the American people, and they know it. That’s why they’re fighting tooth and nail against the simple idea that only citizens should decide America’s future.

Americans deserve the right to choose their own energy destiny through legitimate, secure elections. It’s past time to pass the SAVE America Act, restore election integrity, and let the actual American people speak.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)

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