This morning the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) sent the following letter from President Pete Maysmith to the House of Representatives urging members to vote NO on anti-environmental billionaire tax scam or the Big Ugly Bill. While our typical vote recommendations note that we will consider including votes in our Scorecard, in this instance we are stating unequivocally that we WILL score this extremely damaging legislation in our 2025 National Environmental Scorecard. Yesterday, the League of Conservation Voters also released a memo outlining the top 5 polluter giveaways and 69 anti-environmental provisions in the Senate-passed Big Ugly Bill.

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July 2, 2025

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Re: Oppose H.R. 1, the Anti-Environmental Billionaire Tax Scam a.k.a “Big Ugly Bill”

Dear Representative:

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) believes that everyone has a right to clean air, clean water, public lands, and a safe climate protected by a just and equitable democracy. Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of members of Congress on environmental legislation. The Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide, and the media.

We urge you to oppose H.R. 1, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” more accurately named the anti-environmental billionaire tax scam, the most extreme and sweeping anti-environmental piece of legislation in U.S. history. With roughly 70 separate anti-environmental provisions, it would increase costs for working families through higher energy bills, compromise the health of our communities by rolling back and cutting funding for critical environmental protections, and harm our global competitiveness in the race for a clean energy future, all to justify cutting taxes for billionaires and wealthy corporations and giving further handouts to polluters.

Clean energy is the fastest, cheapest way to bring new electricity onto the grid, increasing reliability and lowering household energy costs. Unfortunately, this partisan reconciliation bill would rescind hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits and funding for clean energy, transmission, and energy efficiency, including rebates for household energy performance, increasing costs for working families and  businesses while harming our environment and job growth. The bill uses these cuts to help finance tax breaks for billionaires and polluting corporations who need it the least. It also creates pay-to-play permitting schemes that would allow polluters to pay for permitting shortcuts and limit harmed communities from having a say in the process. Rescinding tax credits that have already been promised to consumers and businesses to help them save money, create jobs, and reduce their carbon footprint in all 50 states will increase energy costs by hundreds of dollars per year for families, cut over 800,000 jobs, and stifle economic growth by risking over $500 billion in private investments.

In addition to cutting programs that lower costs in the first place, the bill cuts programs meant to provide assistance to those who need it most, including critical lifelines for millions of people like Medicaid and SNAP. What’s more, the bill offsets the costs of these cuts by selling off our pristine public lands and waters for leasing to the oil and gas industry for drilling, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite the fact that the most recent lease sale raised $0.

This partisan reconciliation bill puts our health and safety at risk. It cuts funding for all manner of environmental protections. It eliminates the penalty for fossil fuel companies that fail to reduce their dangerous methane pollution while cutting funds to monitor, enforce, protect and improve air and water quality. It also directs hundreds of billions of dollars to turbocharge mass deportations, militarize the border, fund immigration raids in schools and other community spaces, and tear families apart.

For all these reasons, we strongly urge you to vote NO on H.R. 1, the anti-environmental billionaire tax scam, or Big Ugly Bill. While our typical vote recommendations note that we will consider including votes in our Scorecard, in this instance we are stating unequivocally that we will score this extremely damaging legislation in our 2025 National Environmental Scorecard. If you would like more information, please reach out to a member of our government relations team.

Sincerely,

Pete Maysmith

President