How 'petty' House Republicans billed taxpayers $40,000 for a 'policy conservatives revile'

14 March 2024

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with a photo of U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA).

When members of the U.S. House of Representatives are sworn into Congress, they are given a pin as a symbol of their membership. That pin, in the past, was green.

But according to Emma Dumain, a reporter for E&E News, the House Republican majority spent a reported $40,000 to replace it with a pin that had a different color — as they thought the word "green" sounded too liberal/progressive.

Dumain, in an article published on March 14, reports, "Behind the decision to throw out the pin issued to 435 lawmakers: politics. Republicans believed that the outgoing Democratic majority of the 117th Congress picked the bright green color in honor of the Green New Deal, a progressive policy conservatives revile."

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-California) acknowledges that fellow House Republicans ditched the pin for strictly political reasons.

Dumain quotes the GOP lawmaker as saying, "I heard some guys and gals grumbling that it's an environmental tribute or something like that — which, hey, I like the color green, I have a lot of John Deere equipment in that color. But those of us in resource-based districts get really tired of how big environment groups are already kicking our heads in over how bad we are.… I think there's some fatigue about the environment being used as a weapon."

Meanwhile, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California), meanwhile, confirmed to E&E News that the color green was picked for the pin because of its environmental connotation.

Lofgren told E&E, "The first time I was chair of the committee, I asked kind of too late and was told, 'It's already been done, the sergeant-at-arms did everything.' So the next time I was chair, I decided I was going to ask in advance to be involved."

"Green New Deal" goals been a high priority for progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who has been stressing that green energy can be a major recipe for job creation.

Read E&E News' full report at this link.

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