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While it may be difficult to keep track of all the examples of hypocrisy coming from Washington, D.C. lawmakers these days, particular in relation to the pandemic, where there appears to be a clear double standard in place, when the insincerity involves the single most powerful Democrat on Capital Hill it still warrants attention.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has a history of calling climate change an “existential” threat the U.S. has a “moral” obligation to address, has spent over $500,000 on private jets since 2020, according to Fox News.
“According to campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission, Pelosi’s campaign paid a Virginia-based private aviation provider, Advanced Aviation Team, over $437,000 between October 2020 and December 2021 and over $65,000 to Clay Lacy Aviation, a California-based private jet provider,” the network reported.
The carbon footprint of using private jets compared to commercial flights is certainly not consistent with that “moral” obligation.
The article noted that Pelosi’s campaign spent $67,605 on private air travel just months before she led a 21-member congressional delegation to the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and spoke about combatting the alleged climate crisis as a “religious thing.”
“For me, it’s a religious thing,” Pelosi said in November. “I believe this is God’s creation, and we have a moral obligation to be good stewards.”
Of course, Pelosi is not the only hypocrite in DC — more from Fox News:
The campaign for President Biden, who promised to make climate change a key priority of his presidency, spent over $15 million on private air travel over the course of his 2020 campaign. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has also been vocal about climate change and being “committed to curbing the effects of climate change,” but they have paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to Advanced Aviation Team in recent years.
Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, took a private jet to Iceland in 2019 to receive the Arctic Circle award for climate leadership.
Which is not to say that Pelosi’s media allies aren’t quick to paint a different picture, as seen in a 2019 tweet from CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny noting that the soon to be 82-year-old speaker was flying coach:
Speaker Pelosi was negotiating the fine print of this budget deal from her aisle seat of a delayed Delta flight from Detroit. She’s had the phone pressed to her ear for much of the last three hours. For those wondering, she’s in coach. https://t.co/0W7xyy71qE pic.twitter.com/gYWs1gwtss
— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) July 22, 2019
Hell, The Washington Post even did a full write up of Pelosi’s flying habits, based on the flight above, as seen here:
- She flies coach (at least sometimes, at least this one time) — and not the semi-decent, extra-perks coach: Seat 23D, which is not shown in this photo but which was later confirmed as hers, is boring old back-of-the-plane coach. Not even an exit row!
- She lives that aisle life. The fight over which is better in the aisle-vs.-window fight will never end, but no one will disagree that Pelosi made the right choice by avoiding the middle in this scenario.
- No athleisure here: The speaker is wearing a bright pink dress and what appears to be a scarf draped over her shoulders (the sensible approach to layering for cold plane temperatures in summer). Photos show her in the same pink dress at the NAACP’s national convention in Detroit, along with a pair of pink pumps. We assume you don’t become speaker by taking part in barefoot antics on planes.
- Just like the rest of us, she has to hold onto her plane trash for longer than she would probably like, judging from the plastic cup tucked into the back of the seat in front of her.
- We don’t know about cross-country flights, but at least in this situation, Pelosi is not a recliner. Her right arm isn’t fully visible, but from the position of her hand, she does not appear to be hogging the middle armrest.
- Discretion is key: She’s not taking notes, there’s no paperwork that hints at the conversations she’s having and her phone is obscured by virtue of being pressed to her ear.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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