HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — For years, Democrats have dreamed of defeating one of the biggest climate change science deniers in Congress.
This year, they might have their shot.
Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican from central Pennsylvania and the former chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, is in a close fight with Democrat Janelle Stelson, who quit her job as a local television anchor to run for Congress.
Stelson’s message to voters here is simple: She has been a nonpartisan figure who people have trusted to deliver the news for decades, while Perry has been an “obstructionist” on issues like abortion, gun violence and climate change.
Stelson and Democrats also hope to win by highlighting benefits reaped from Biden administration efforts that Perry opposed — including hundreds of millions for a major bridge replacement and funding for projects that have flowed out of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act.
And even as she says she favors hydraulic fracturing to cater to Pennsylvania voters, Democrats will have their work cut out for them. The state’s 10th District, containing the state capital Harrisburg and its surrounding suburbs, has consistently voted Republican.
A six-term hard-line conservative, Perry, 60, has long made his climate position clear. He questions human contributions to it and promised to rid any discussion of the topic from the House subcommittee on disasters that he chairs.
“I guarantee you,” he said last year, “We will not be focusing on climate change.”
Indeed, he has introduced at least eight pieces of legislation that would repeal parts of the IRA.
Stelson, a onetime registered Republican who has not endorsed Kamala Harris for president, draws on her decades of reporting experience at WGAL-TV to inform her policy decisions, including on climate change.
“He’s a denier,” Stelson, 62, said in an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News. “He doesn’t think we have a problem on that front. I’ve been sitting on the news desk covering the change in climate for a very long time. I have seen the flash flooding in this area after the torrential storms that we never used to get — or used to get very, very infrequently. I’ve seen these things close up, … and it’s heartbreaking.”
She added: “I believe the scientists. … He does not.”
‘Don’t … force me to vote for garbage’
Since he entered Congress in 2013, Perry, a businessman and pilot who served in Iraq and retired from the Army National Guard as a brigadier general in 2019, has been a staunch conservative.
He has opposed most all environment-focused legislation, save for a handful of votes like a ban on shark fin imports and exports and Great Lakes funding, according to a voting scorecard from the League of Conservation Voters.
And he has consistently voted against numerous high-profile funding bills over the past several years, some of which have benefited his district.
Still, unlike many politicians who go to ribbon-cuttings to celebrate billions of federal dollars they voted against, Perry has been a no-show. Though he has supported certain projects that have received federal aid that he once voted against.
Over the summer, local and federal officials gathered at the base of South Bridge, a span over Interstate 83, to praise $500 million from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law to fix the deteriorating bridge.
Perry, who voted against that bill, did not join Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) or Sen. Bob Casey (D) to mark the occasion in his district.
Perry also had nothing to say about a Harley-Davidson manufacturing plant in his district, which received $89 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding to make zero-emissions motorcycles.
And he skipped an IRA-related event this spring at the corporate headquarters for Voith Hydro, a hydropower equipment company, even though he’s had a long-standing friendly relationship with the York-based business.
Perry, though, says he’s not out of step with voters. “The bulk of these bills are Green New Deal provisions — that my constituents can’t afford and do not want,” he said in a statement. “I hear it everywhere I go.”
A recent trip to a diner near the Harley-Davidson manufacturing plant in York County revealed that customers and workers are not too keen on the electric models.
One former plant worker, Bryan Lease, said the electric bikes were glitching. And a patron outside who said he owned four Harleys was aghast at the thought of buying electric. “If I had to drill gasoline in my backyard, I would,” he said.
Even still, opponents are seizing on Perry’s voting record. “A congressperson is supposed to represent the issues of the district,” said Craig Snyder, a spokesperson for Republicans Against Perry, a newly formed group that is backing Stelson.
Snyder was chief of staff to former Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a moderate Republican-turned-Democrat. The group also includes Walter Cohen, a former GOP attorney general of Pennsylvania, as well as other former GOP candidates and staffers.
“I-83 is the Main Street of that district,” Snyder said, of the interstate that stretches from Baltimore to Harrisburg. “You have on-ramps to the road that were from the ‘50s and ‘60s — it’s literally dangerous. There’s a lot of really old infrastructure that needs to be updated.”
Perry’s allies have scoffed at Snyder’s group as one that is run by “a guy who lives in Philadelphia.”
Charlie Gerow, a longtime GOP consultant in Pennsylvania who is aligned with Perry, said, “There are certainly going to be outside influences,” while adding, “I know they won’t have much impact.”
In a brief interview on Capitol Hill recently, Perry rejected Democrats’ attacks regarding the infrastructure law and the bridge: “No, no, no,” he asserted.
“I’m the first signature on the letter in favor of the I-83 replacement. But when the bill is loaded up with a bunch of — look, I’m all for building more roads and more bridges and more capacity. Don’t put a bunch of garbage on there and try to force me to vote for garbage on there, because I won’t.”
Perry seemed to be referencing a letter he wrote with Casey in April urging the Transportation Department to use infrastructure law funding to help replace the bridge.
His campaign declined to make him available for a longer interview, but in a statement, Perry argued Biden spending plans have piled onto the high cost-of-living that’s already crushing his constituents.
“I have an obligation to be a steward of their hard-earned dollars,” Perry said. “And if that ‘unfriends’ me from the Beltway Class, then so be it.”
Stelson said she would have voted for the infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act.
“These are all things that are important here in the 10th District,” she said. “We absolutely need to continue to bring back American manufacturing and reshoring jobs from countries like China.”
The two have one thing in common: their position on Three Mile Island, which is located in the district and is slated to reopen to sell nuclear power to Microsoft. Both cited job creation. The project will also be eligible for IRA tax credits.
Big spending
Despite Stelson’s snub of Harris, the Democratic machine is all-in for her. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has given Stelson organizational, fundraising and advertising support.
She has been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, which said she, along with other candidates would prioritize “tackling the climate crisis and fighting for a clean energy future for all.”
Outside spending has been plentiful. The Welcome PAC has bought $180,600 for her. The DCCC has bought $830,000, and the House Majority PAC has committed $2.4 million. New ads go up Oct. 8.
On Perry’s side of the ledger, the House Freedom Fund, Win It Back and others have spent close to $500,000.
As of June 30, as individual candidates, Perry had outraised Stelson, $2.7 million to $1.9 million. But Perry has spent way more, too. As of June, he had just about $800,000 on hand, while Stelson had $1.1 million.
He has also been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees after the FBI seized his cellphone records to probe his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, the York Dispatch reported earlier this year.
Republicans operatives are quick to point out Stelson lives in neighboring Lancaster County. “Voters will reject an out-of-touch Democrat who doesn’t even live in the district she wants to represent, just like they rejected every other candidate DC Democrats swore could win,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella.
While Trump won the district by just 4 points in 2020, Perry won his 2022 race by 8 points. Multiple polls have showed the race in a statistical dead heat. Analysts at the non-partisan Cook Political Report rates the race “lean Republican.”
Perry has been one of former president Donald Trump’s key allies and has tried, unsuccessfully, to strip climate language from defense policy bills. He once faced online backlash for arguing God is a polluter.
He authored an amendment on last year’s Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill stripping funding for a regulation on silica dust for coal miners.
Republicans don’t think his environmental record will move the needle with voters. Gerow, the GOP consultant, asserted “not one person in the entire district” is talking about EPA regulations, suggesting people are more concerned about pocketbook issues.
“They are talking about the high cost of inflation,” he said. “They are talking about where the stock market is headed, … 401Ks.”
Focus on fracking
As Stelson seeks to make her mark, Democrats in the district are hoping to highlight projects made possible by the Biden administration.
Dave Madsen, a Democratic member of the state Assembly, represents the borough of Steelton in Perry’s district, home to the first mill in the U.S. that solely produced steel.
Madsen credited the Biden administration for helping the 150-year-old mill by inserting “Buy America” provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure law.
“It’s creating jobs in an industry that has been struggling for a very long time,” he said at a gathering of Democrats for a convention watch party last month. “The mill is hiring at a record rate. That all happened because of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.”
In an interview outside after his speech, Madsen was candid about the dance politicians here must do on oil and gas production. He’s a big backer of the Biden administration’s effort to expand solar in schools, for example. But he’s not in favor of banning fracking — the steel plant actually manufactures pipes for hydraulic fracturing.
Stelson took a similar stance. “There are a lot of really good-paying jobs in Central Pennsylvania that rely on the energy industry and fracking,” she said. “Whatever the process, our first priority is protecting those workers and those jobs.”
She continued to say what has become a well-honed Democratic talking point on fracking, echoed by Harris: That creating more renewable energy in the U.S. makes the nation less dependent on foreign oil and energy; environmental protections don’t need to be sacrificed.
“It can be a win-win if we do it right,” she said. “And we absolutely need to embrace our state’s role as an energy powerhouse.”
Reporter Timothy Cama contributed.
