Dori: Legislature punishing your lifestyle in name of clean energy

The socialists have taken control. There are no longer any moderate Democrats in our state Legislature. In Olympia, the Senate just passed Senate Bill 5116 for 100 percent clean energy. They want to get rid of all carbon-sourced energy in our state — oil, natural gas, and coal.

What they are planning is something that is absolutely impossible without costing every family thousands of dollars a year extra. They want to combine hydro-electric, wind, and solar to eliminate fossil fuel use entirely.

Forbes says wind power is not economically viable in our state. You can do it, but it will cost a fortune. As for solar — you want to try that in Puget Sound? Yeah, that will work great here with all the sunshine we get.

RELATED: We are moving closer and closer toward a nanny state

This is not about clean energy. It is all about punishing you for your lifestyle.

We said no to a carbon tax at the ballot box, but the Democrats are in charge in the Legislature, and it’s their job to fundamentally change your lifestyle. And it’s all in the name of this phony clean energy environmental activism.

This is to the absolute shame of the voters who put them in control. You knew that with Inslee as governor and Democrats in control of both chambers in Olympia, this was going to happen.

Sen. Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) said that there are no more moderate Democrats in Olympia anymore — that the people running our Legislature are trying to create a “Socialist-Green utopia.”

“I have never seen Olympia like this before … they are rolling over us right now with tax increases, fee increases, and energy cost increases,” he said.

The irony, as Ericksen pointed out, is that we are already doing really well in terms of clean energy in Washington.

“Washington state is already the world leader in energy production when it comes to [being carbon-independent],” he said. “We have hydro, we have nuclear, we have some wind and solar out there — about 75 percent of our grid currently is non-carbon producing.” In comparison, he said, China is at about 20 percent.

I knew this Legislative session would be bad, but I did not know that it would be this bad, to the point of raising your taxes thousands of dollars. For working-class people, this session is devastating.

And, according to what Ericksen has heard from his colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that is exactly what the Democrats want.

“One of the things you’ll hear from a lot of these people is they want people to suffer — ‘You’re going to have to sacrifice to achieve this 100 percent,'” Ericksen said. “So it might mean, hey, no longer can you have a hot tub in the house, no longer can you have a freezer in the garage. They’re saying that people need to feel the pain.”

When my wife and I built our house, I wanted a nice big natural gas fireplace. Natural gas is what fuels my furnace and water heater. They want to either get rid of all of this, or make you pay through the nose for it.

Ericksen said that there is a movement among Democrats called “Leave fossil fuels in the ground.” Well, the only thing they’ll leave in the ground is us, because they’re killing us with these clean energy measures. My electric bill has already hit $1,000 for a month here.

And this isn’t just about heating your house. We could see the gas tax go up 20 to 30 cents a gallon. Every time you take an Uber or Lyft, an extra 50 cents goes to the government. Soon at every grocery store in the state, you’ll have to buy a paper bag if House Bill 1205 passes, even though in Washington state, we are responsible for essentially zero percent of the plastic in the ocean — it comes out of Asia and Africa, where people throw their garbage in the rivers. Where do those eight cents for each paper grocery bag go? To Olympia. This isn’t to save the environment. They’re so full of garbage when they say that. This is all about transferring wealth from us to them and growing government, until we begin to resemble a socialist society.

The trouble with socialism is that the people who desire it are helpless little babies. In Seattle, people are confident that they can’t run their own lives. They need government to be their mommy and daddy. The rest of the state — the rural parts, even the suburbs — is full of self-sufficient, hardworking people who know how to take care of their own lives and want to be left alone by government. I suspect that makes up a healthy portion of my listeners.

Where we are right now is a government that will get you just barely by, as long as you vote for Democrats. So you have a lot of adult babies. We have an awful lot of people who are incapable and unwilling to run their own lives. When government is simply a tool for extracting money from us, that’s when things get really dangerous. That’s where we are in this state.

Are we going to put the brakes on this? Is the pendulum going to swing back? Or are we going to become the ultimate nanny state in the country? That’s the precipice we’re on right now.

You still have a chance to stave this off somewhat. Your voice still, to a tiny extent, matters. Contact your legislators. Let them know that what they are not just proposing, but passing, is going to cripple families around here.

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