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Bachmann Lies: Claims Democrats Won’t ‘Pass The Tax Credit For Solar And Wind’ After GOP Blocked It

During an interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) today, right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham asserted that Congressional Democrats “are acting as the ultimate obstructionists” on energy policy. Bachmann agreed, saying that “this is mission accomplished for them” because they don’t want to “increase American energy resources.”

Declaring that the Congressional Democrats are “so strange,” Bachmann then claimed that they wouldn’t “pass the tax credit for solar and wind,” despite being “the big solar/wind people”:

BACHMANN: Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. What we want to do is accomplish the people’s mission, which is open up every source of energy there is. They’re so strange Laura, they won’t even pass the tax credit for solar and wind right now. I mean, they claim to be the big solar/wind people, they won’t even pass that.

Listen here:

Bachmann’s claim about who blocked “the tax credit for solar and wind” is flatly false. Just yesterday, the AP reported that “for the fourth time this summer” Senate conservatives blocked action on legislation that would provide “tax credits to an array of renewable energy entrepreneurs”:

For the fourth time this summer Republicans stopped the Senate from taking up wide-ranging legislation that extends tax breaks for teachers, businesses and parents and provides tax credits to an array of renewable energy entrepreneurs. […]

The bill would extend some $18 billion worth of renewable energy tax credits, helping out investors in wind and solar power, clean coal, plug-in electric vehicles and a variety of others.

In fact, when the House passed the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 in May, Bachmann voted against it, along with the majority of House Republicans. The bill was then filibustered by Senate Republicans in June.

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What’s truly “so strange” is that Bachmann can act as an ex post facto advocate for legislation she actively opposed.

Transcript:

INGRAHAM: Now, we see that Democrats are acting as the ultimate obstructionists.

BACHMANN: Yes.

INGRAHAM: They don’t, they don’t want to do anything the American people clearly are showing that they want.

BACHMANN: This is their mission. This is mission accomplished for them. They’re doing exactly what they want to do, which is do not increase American energy resources, whether it’s natural gas, coal or oil. They want none of it.

INGRAHAM: And so, and the Republican, right, the Republican Party right now, is saying, you proceed down these lines, we are not going to allow you, or do everything we can in our power, to stop votes on other bills that you want. Is that what’s going on?

BACHMANN: Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. What we want to do is accomplish the people’s mission, which is open up every source of energy there is. They’re so strange Laura, they won’t even pass the tax credit for solar and wind right now. I mean, they claim to be the big solar/wind people, they won’t even pass that.

INGRAHAM: Now why are they not doing that?

BACHMANN: We don’t know. It is no energy any of the time. We are for all energy all of the time. Cause the crux of this issue is whether or not we will make it legal to access American energy. We’re the only country in the world that makes it illegal to access our own energy supply, hence we are 70 percent dependent on foreign oil and will be 80 percent in the next decade if we don’t change course.