Tampa, FL — Yesterday, while participating in Rep. Crist’s Protect Our Care bus tour, Representative Castor made a verbal commitment to Food & Water Watch Senior Florida Organizer Brooke Errett that she would end federal fossil fuel subsidies in the infrastructure package currently moving through Congress. Currently, the federal government provides about $15 billion in direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry each year — the latest bipartisan infrastructure bill includes approximately $25 billion of new subsidies for the dirty industry.

“We are cutting them,” said Representative Castor of fossil fuel subsidies. “As the Chair of the Climate Crisis Committee, I am working right now to make sure that we cut the fossil fuel subsidies out of the federal budget and instead invest in renewables.”

Representative Castor has called for an end to fossil fuel subsidies since taking office in 2007, and advocates are clear in the urgent need to follow through on that commitment in this pivotal moment for climate action. Her commitment comes on the heels of the Tampa City Council’s own clean energy resolution, which called on Rep. Castor to act on climate where the city could not. Chief among the City’s calls to action was a demand to stop fossil fuel subsidies in the federal infrastructure package. Food & Water Watch Senior Florida Organizer Brooke Errett said,

“We are emboldened by Representative Castor’s commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies, and will rally support here in Tampa to ensure that commitment makes its way into the final infrastructure package passed out of Congress. Every dollar of taxpayer money must go toward clean, renewable energy — not towards the destructive industry destroying our planet. The time to end fossil fuel subsidies is right now, and we expect Rep. Castor to lead as a Congressional champion on this issue.”

Contact: Phoebe Galt, [email protected]

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