From Nathan Dombeck

Janesville

To the Editor:

Make America Great Again? More like Make America Sick Again, or perhaps Make America Regress Again. Those acronyms may not have quite the same ring as MAGA, but as the Republican party falls in line to jump off the proverbial cliff like proverbial lemmings while supporting the disastrous ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, they are quite a bit more accurate.

How else to explain provisions in the bill that attempt to take us back to some ill-defined glory days of rampant fossil fuel extraction and combustion? Slashing investments in solar and wind power production and deployment, dropping incentives for EVs, and continuing to prop up the gas and oil industry with subsidies — this will not MAGA. It’ll only pollute, degrade, destroy our environment and health further.

The USA is further becoming a punchline thanks to these policies as well. The world’s most populous country, China, is all-in on renewables and electrification — producing 65$ billion worth of battery exports, 40$ billion worth of solar panel exports, and dominating the global EV market. Ireland shut down the country’s last coal plant 10 days ago. India is third globally in renewable energy deployment.

Meanwhile, we remain tethered to the past, when the world was hooked on oil to fuel industry and transportation. The world is changing, and if the USA will not change with it, we’ll be left behind in a cloud of dust — make that smog.