Mike Lawler had a big announcement this past week.
This was translated by the local pro-Lawler Rockland Daily as: “Congressman Mike Lawler Secures Key Environmental Win for Hudson River in Coast Guard Bill.” A banner headline accompanied by the expansive photo above of an idyllic Hudson River.
We’re to believe that Lawler is an environmental crusader, fighting for a world that looks like this photo. Just because he got a provision put into a Coast Guard funding bill that prevents the Coast Guard from adding any new anchorages on the Hudson, “to protect Hudson Valley families and ecosystems from polluting barges.”
Mike Lawler is no friend of the earth, as Rule of Lawler reported this past Earth Day (see “Earth to Lawler“). To refresh, here is what he posted on Earth Day:
Shortly after that post, Mike Lawler voted to increase emissions, increase consumer costs, and sacrifice clean energy technology — in other words, the future — to our foreign adversaries. He did this with a single vote in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
EMISSIONS
Mike Lawler’s definition of an “all of the above” energy policy is to relentlessly promote “clean” natural gas. It may be cleaner than coal, but it’s still dirty. Facts:
- Natural gas is mainly methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
- Methane has approximately 80 times the warming impact compared to CO2 over a 20-year period.
- Methane emissions account for nearly half of the increase in global surface temperatures since 1850.
- More than half of the world’s methane emissions are man-made.
- Natural gas systems accounted for 24.6 of total methane emissions in the U.S. in 2022.
We were making progress. The Biden administration had a comprehensive Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan, and devoted $370 billion — “the largest renewable energy investment ever to build the infrastructure of decarbonization,” in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Mike Lawler voted to defund and reverse almost all of that with OBBBA.
And today comes news that Trump’s EPA is rescinding its own authority to regulate greenhouse gases, scrapping the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” — that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
We have a lot more to worry about than an additional Coast Guard anchorage on the Hudson. As Mike Lawler bangs the drum to drill, baby, drill.
CONSUMER COSTS
“The cost of electricity is poised to surge across the US in the wake of Republican legislation that takes an axe to cheap renewable energy.” – The Guardian, July 14, 2025
A study by think tank Energy Innovation concludes that OBBBA policies will “increase oil and gas leasing, cut fossil fuel royalty rates, repeal clean energy tax credits, and delay funding for agricultural and forestry conservation. The law will harm America by cutting new electricity capacity additions, increasing consumer power prices, and reducing U.S. GDP and job growth:
- Workers suffer 760,000 lost jobs by 2030
- Power generation capacity will fall 340 gigawatts by 2035, raising costs to meet growing demand and damaging industrial competitiveness
- Wholesale electricity prices will increase 25 percent by 2030 and 74 percent by 2035; electricity rates paid by consumers will increase between 9-18 percent by 2035
- Household energy costs will increase $170 annually by 2035
- America loses $980 billion in cumulative GDP through the budget reconciliation window”
FOREIGN ADVERSARIES
OBBBA effectively cedes the energy future to China. While Trump and MAGA Mike increase subsidies for fossil fuels and cut investments in cheaper clean energy, China is making massive investments in the energy technology of the future: renewables. They will now own the electric vehicle market and solar industry among others, and they’re probably 10 years ahead of us on nuclear technology.
CONCLUSION
Don’t be fooled by the pretty picture and the pretty words.
This is the sum of Mike Lawler. Say clean, vote dirty. Say lower costs, vote higher costs. Say long-term security, vote short-term profits. Say moderate, vote MAGA. Say constituents, vote Trump.
Say goodbye, Mike Lawler.
Rule of Lawler 