The leader of a House Republican group focused on climate change is at risk of getting kicked out of Congress.
During her time in the House, Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks has backed wind power and biofuels. This year she became chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, which accepts humans’ role in climate change while advocating for the continued use of fossil fuels.
But Miller-Meeks barely won her first race for Congress in 2020 and is now being outspent by her Democratic challenger. The Republican hopes her rhetoric on energy and the environment will help her secure reelection.
“Iowa has a great story to tell,” Miller-Meeks said at a recent debate in which she touted her leadership on the caucus. “Fifty percent of our energy in Iowa is renewable.”
Those stances could help her in the southeast Iowa district she represents, though she has not made climate a prominent issue in the campaign.
The district has long been evenly divided politically; she won her first election in 2020 by just six votes, flipping the seat from Democratic control.
This year she faces a rematch with Democrat Christina Bohannan, a University of Iowa law professor and former state legislator who has won the backing of numerous green groups.
Bohannan is outraising Miller-Meeks by a nearly 2-to-1 margin and has focused much of her campaign attacking Miller-Meeks on abortion rights. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report recently shifted the race to “toss-up” status following recent polling.
The issue of climate change continues to be a thorny one for Republicans. While the Conservative Climate Caucus has attracted dozens, former President Donald Trump continues to deride efforts to fight emissions.
Indeed, at the debate, Miller-Meeks made a point of highlighting Iowa’s renewable energy sector while saying it was done “without mandates and without emission standards.”
In recent years, Iowa has suffered from the effects of climate change. Numerous insurance companies have raised rates while others have pulled out of the state altogether, a result of devastating storms and record flooding, which many scientists have linked to climate change.
Later in the debate, after Bohannan said Miller-Meeks “for a long now time has been very slow to want to take action on climate,” the incumbent brought up her role in the caucus as a plus for the state’s agriculture sector.
“I’m also the chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus,” she said, pointing out that she’s attended the past three United Nations climate change conventions, “talking about Iowa’s energy, Iowa’s clean energy and also the resiliency of our farmers, with sustainable, regenerative ag and what they are doing.”
Yet Miller-Meeks doesn’t see her leadership role in the climate caucus as a way to burnish centrist credentials.
“I don’t do it because I think it’s going to help in an election. I do it because it’s an issue I’m concerned about,” she said in an interview late last month. “It may help with some people, it may hurt with some people. But nonetheless, I think it’s important that Republicans are engaged in this space and engaged in the conversation.”
Campaign spokesperson Anthony Cruz said she is nonetheless talking about the issue frequently on the campaign trail.
“She advocates for an any-of-the-above approach while reducing emissions — not energy options — for a cleaner, healthier environment for our future.,” he said.
He pointed to examples such as a recent event with Iowa Corn, the state’s industry advocacy group, to discuss ethanol, and a visit with Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) to a manufacturing plant owned by Vermeer Corp., where she discussed the plant’s on-site solar energy system.
Caucus of vulnerables
Miller-Meeks took over as chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus in April. She succeeded Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), the group’s founder, when he stepped aside to focus on his Senate campaign; Curtis won the GOP primary for the seat in June and is expected to win the general election easily.
She’s one of a number of vulnerable Republicans in the climate caucus. Twelve members of the 82-person group represent districts where President Joe Biden won in the 2020 race, and most of the lawmakers whose elections are among the most competitive are in the caucus. Trump won Miller-Meeks’ district.
“It’s not a surprise that when Democrats pour tons of money into a district to buy a seat that may be reflected the polls,” Miller-Meeks said last month, pointing out that earlier polls had her winning comfortably.
“Iowa 1 is a swing district. It’s always been a tough district for Republicans. It is no different,” she said. “But we’ll continue to do all that we’re doing on all of our outreach, our constituent services, and we’ll get our message up on air, and I think you’ll see it change.”
The caucus hasn’t endorsed any legislation. It generally pushes for Republicans to acknowledge human-induced climate change and to discuss policies that the GOP argues would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, like boosting natural gas production and reducing regulations.
Miller-Meeks’ own climate policies generally align with Iowa priorities, like supporting biofuels and wind energy. She’s been supportive of carbon dioxide pipelines in Iowa, a controversial issue in some areas, which she says would be help the biofuels industry.
“There is a possibility to capture carbon that is generated in the making of ethanol, and then to sequester that, [which] may help to prolong the ethanol industry, which is an important industry in our state,” she said at the debate this week, with a caveat that she doesn’t support using eminent domain to build the pipelines.
Miller-Meeks faced a primary challenge in June from businessman David Pautsch, who argued that she was too centrist for the district. She nevertheless won by more than 12 percentage points.
She has gotten endorsements from conservative climate-minded groups like Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions and ClearPath. ClearPath Action Fund, the group’s super political action committee, has spent $50,000 supporting her bid, and it plans to spend a total of $100,000 by Election Day.
“The ClearPath Action Fund was active in Rep. Miller-Meeks’ June primary and remains active highlighting her leadership for clean energy innovation in Iowa. The ClearPath Action Fund has been communicating her record of success to southeast Iowa voters,” said spokesperson Luke Bolar.
The PAC affiliated with the American Conservation Coalition, which also backs Miller-Meeks, is organizing a canvassing event over this weekend in Iowa City for the lawmaker, alongside Iowa Young Republicans and the National Federation of College Republicans.
‘Climate peacock’
Bohannan’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for an interview or to comment. Before teaching law, her career included a stint as an engineer at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, working in areas like drinking water and industrial wastewater. In the debate Monday, she touted her experience on water issues, saying it influences her view on regulating business.
“I think that a lot of times we come in with too heavy a hand in regulation when a lighter touch will do,” she said, adding that regulators need to work closely with regulated businesses “and let them be part of the solution.”
After criticizing Miller-Meeks’ record on climate, Bohannan outlined her approach.
“We are not going to have an economy if we have to spend half of our GDP cleaning up from natural disasters that we could have prevented in the first place,” she said. “It’s really important that we take action on this. I think the best way to do that is not through any unfunded mandates or anything, but having our farmers be part of the solution to sequestering carbon.”
Bohannan has bested Miller-Meeks in the money game, bringing in $1.9 million in the third quarter of the year, to Miller-Meeks’ $1 million.
Bohannan has reasons to be optimistic as Election Day approaches, said Donna Hoffman, a political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa.
She contrasted the race with the same candidates’ 2022 matchup, pointing to factors like low turnout and the saliency of abortion rights — the state’s restrictive six-week abortion ban took effect in July — that are likely to boost Bohannan. Miller-Meeks previously supported the “Life At Conception Act,” which sought to apply equal protection from the moment of conception.
“It’s a presidential election cycle, and Bohannan has some level of momentum on a number of different measures,” Hoffman said.
The 1st District is just about equal in party registration among Republicans, Democrats and voters with no party affiliation, and that balance only barely changed with 2022’s redistricting, Hoffman said. That’s due largely to Iowa’s nonpartisan redistricting system.
While the race has been relatively quiet on climate, energy and the environment, Miller-Meeks does talk about her efforts to promote biofuels at times. Iowa is the leading producer of ethanol in the United States.
Miller-Meeks helped push House Republican leadership last year to preserve biofuel incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act in their “Limit, Save, Grow Act,” which otherwise sought to roll back most of the IRA’s clean energy provisions.
She also signed on to a September letter with 17 other House Republicans calling on GOP leadership to save many of the climate law’s clean energy tax credits if they target the rest of the IRA next year.
Apart from abortion rights, Bohannan is focusing her campaign mainly on issues like inflation and the cost of living.
“She talks a lot about lowering the cost of groceries and things. She’s done nothing to bring those costs down,” Bohannan said in an interview with Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO 13.
“In fact, you can draw a straight line between the money that she’s taken from corporations and special interests and votes she’s taken to keep our prices high. Over $150,000 from Big Oil, and then she voted against holding Big Oil accountable for price gouging at the pump.”
Bohannan has not made environmental matters a frequent topic in her campaign. She has the support of the League of Conservation Voters, Friends of the Earth Action, Food and Water Action and Climate Hawks Vote.
RL Miller, president of the group Climate Hawks Vote, said Miller-Meeks’ role in the climate caucus makes her a “climate peacock” — the group’s term for politicians who talk a big game about climate change but don’t have the policies to back it up.
“We endorsed Christina Bohannan before the buzz started building around the Iowa races, in part because she was running against a climate peacock,” Miller said. “And she has a legitimate background as an environmental engineer.”
