Election 2024: Where Do Harris and Trump Stand on the Climate Crisis?


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The 2024 presidential election is widely projected to be one of the closest in American history, and each candidate says the stakes have never been higher. There are many issues on the ballot, from abortion rights to foreign policy. But where do the candidates stand on the climate crisis facing the planet?
Kamala Harris
When she ran for president in 2020, then-Senator Kamala Harris campaigned as a climate champion. She embraced a Green New Deal, called for a ban on fracking, and released a $10 trillion climate plan that had provisions to invest in renewable energy, hold major polluters accountable and emphasize environmental justice reforms.
Since she was named President Joe Biden’s vice president, however, climate policies Harris once supported went to the back burner as she publicly embraced Biden’s climate policy, which was largely to her right.
So where does she stand now?
On Climate Science
While Harris has long been an advocate for climate action, the Harris campaign has not yet released a comprehensive climate plan, and Harris has been fairly silent on climate change and energy as a whole on the campaign trail. That silence could be a strategic move, though, so as not to alienate certain voters, especially Pennsylvanians — the voters in a crucial swing state with a significant fossil fuel industry — and young voters. Harris’ commenting on green energy and a need to move away from fossil fuels would risk the ire of the former. And remarks on the record oil production under the Inflation Reduction Act, which she’s said has helped lower energy costs in the U.S., would risk alienating the latter.
“It looks like a deliberate decision to forgo both pro-climate and pro-drilling messaging,” Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, told The Washington Post. “The campaign may have concluded that it has more to lose by alienating voters on either side than to gain by drawing in undecideds.”
However, a comment made by one of Harris’ advisors at a DNC event could shine more light on her climate stance. Ike Irby, a senior advisor to Harris, said that Harris and her VP pick Tim Walz are “committed to bold action to build a clean energy economy, create good jobs, ensure America’s energy security, reduce emissions, protect public health, support communities in the face of climate disasters and hold polluters accountable.”
Fracking
Harris, in a U-turn on her views on fracking, said she would not support a ban on fracking, citing the need to “invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”
This, too, could be a strategic move, as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speculated. Sanders said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he views Harris’ reversal on fracking and Medicare for all as a “pragmatic” decision to do “what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”
However, it’s worth noting that Harris was the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which, along with major subsidies for renewable energy, did open up new leases for fracking, a point she made in her debate with former President Trump.
Energy Policy
Harris has defended the record oil and gas production in the U.S. under Biden by saying that it helps keep energy prices low as the country shifts toward renewable energy sources.
Her official policy page lays out how she plans to tackle the climate crisis. She says she will “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis as she builds on this historic work, advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health, increases resilience to climate disasters, lowers household energy costs, creates millions of new jobs, and continues to hold polluters accountable to secure clean air and water for all.”
Inflation Reduction Act
Among its many provisions, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) featured an historic amount of of legislation to curb the climate crisis.
The IRA included generous tax credits for renewable energy sources, corporate tax credits for companies that produce renewable energy components, a tax credit for energy companies to produce renewable energy, funding for climate change resilience and drought mitigation, electric vehicle tax credits and production credits, a clean fuel standard, and provisions to promote carbon capture and storage, as well as climate research.
After casting the tie-breaking vote for the IRA, Harris said she plans to build on it as president.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s views on climate change and energy are more primitive as he does not support renewable energy, and sides with fossil fuels.
His previous administration also aggressively rolled back nearly 100 climate regulations.
On Climate Science
Former President Trump has a long history of climate denialism. He has called climate change a “hoax.” Recently on the campaign trail, he said that nuclear warming, not climate change, is “the warming that you’re going to have to be very careful with.”
Fracking
Donald Trump supports fracking. At a recent Pennsylvania rally, Trump said, “With me, one thing you know, I will never be stopping fracking,” and has repeatedly said he will “Drill, baby, drill.”
Energy Policy
Trump favors fossil fuel and coal energy. On his official Agenda 47 policy plan, Trump says that he will “rescind” what he sweepingly describes as “every one of Joe Biden’s industry-killing, jobs-killing, pro-China and anti-American electricity regulations.” He has also promised to massively escalate domestic oil and natural gas production.
Paris Climate Agreement
Trump’s Agenda 47 policy says he will leave the “horrendously unfair Paris Climate Accords.” This promise isn’t surprising, as Trump previously took the U.S. out of the agreement, which aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming.
Project 2025
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would have enormous consequences for climate policy if enacted. It calls for an extreme restructuring of virtually every facet of the executive branch, including the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA.
Although Trump has tried to publicly distance himself from the project, many people associated with him are behind the document.
Since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the Heritage Foundation has been extremely influential in every Republican presidential administration. It has done so through detailed documents called Mandates for Leadership, a guide for right-wing domestic and foreign policy.
Just weeks after Reagan won reelection in 1984, The Washington Post reported that the first Mandate for Leadership, which was “designed to force the federal government to the right” was so influential in the Reagan Administration that it “became a bible of sorts for many in the Reagan White House.” The Heritage Foundation boasts that about 60% of their entire policy guide was implemented by the end of Reagan’s first term.
The foundation and its mandates were similarly influential in the administrations of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump.
In Trump’s 2017-2021 administration, the Heritage Foundation had enormous influence. It had a say in who would be part of the White House staff, including at least 66 Heritage employees and alumni, according to The New York Times. Trump also bragged about his success with instituting the Heritage Foundation’s recommendations faster than Reagan did.
The Heritage Foundation has just stated that 64% of the Trump Agenda is already done, faster than even Ronald Reagan. “We’re blown away,” said Thomas Binion of Heritage, President Trump “is very active, very conservative and very effective. Huge volume & spectrum of issues.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2018
In all but name, Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership. Its main architects are Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and Russ Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist who is the former head of the office of management and budget in the Trump White House and is the current policy director for the Republican National Committee.
Kevin Roberts said that he views his role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”
Project 2025 has been labeled as extremely authoritarian and far-right on both social and economic issues. It opposes abortion, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights and racial equity, according to the ACLU.
Mandy Gunasekara, the previous chief of staff to Trump’s EPA, and who wrote the chapter on the EPA for Project 2025, shows she is at odds with the scientific consensus on climate change, denouncing what she describes as the EPA’s “fear-based rhetoric” around the “perceived threat of climate change.”
Chris Sellers, the head of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative’s (EDGI’s) Policy Monitoring and Interviewing Initiative, told EcoWatch that Gunasekara is now being “being talked about as the leading candidate for EPA Administrator.”
Concerning broad restructuring for executive branch departments, Sellers said, “They want to basically do away with a lot of the civil service requirements… [for] the EPA, they want to put a political appointee in charge of research and development. And that’s kind of emblematic, I mean, that kind of politicization.”
The EPA chapter also advocates for “open-source science,” which according to the EDGI’s annotation of Project 2025, is “code language for conservative efforts to undermine the work of scientists and the role of science in the regulatory process.” The authors of the annotation say that it’s a variation on the controversial “sound science” idea pushed by Scott Pruitt, Trump’s head of the EPA, as a right-wing talking point used to further fossil fuel interests.
The annotation authors write, “This ‘open-source science’ agenda would exclude from regulatory considerations practically all the burgeoning science done over the past two decades centering on actual people who are exposed to toxic pollutants.”
As for energy policy, Robert Lifset, associate professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and researcher for EDGI, told EcoWatch, “This was basically written by oil and gas lobbyists, or it was written by people who sat down with oil and gas lobbyists and asked them what they wanted, or what what they wanted to see done.”
Bernard L. McNamee, commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Trump, wrote the chapter on the Department of Energy, which pushes, among many changes, energy dominance through liquefied natural gas and fossil fuels.
William Perry Pendley, who was acting director of the Bureau of Land Management under Trump, wrote the chapter on the Department of the Interior, which in part pushes domestic oil and fossil fuels.
Additionally, Project 2025 would see the U.S. completely back out of the Paris Climate Agreement, break up NOAA, end all subsidies for renewable energy and eliminate energy efficiency standards for appliances.
Some of these proposed sweeping changes could be difficult to enact in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning the Chevron doctrine, a landmark ruling surrounding how the federal government should deal with unclear or ambiguous language in laws concerning the executive branch. Laws giving authority to departments in the executive branch have often been written intentionally vague to allow for experts in those departments to have large sway over how to approach their duties, which the Chevron doctrine allowed for — a boon to Democratic and Republican administrations alike.
Now, any ambiguous language would be the responsibility of the judicial system to clarify, which could make a second Trump administration’s role in instituting Project 2025 more difficult. A cold comfort, perhaps, as there are hundreds of conservative federal judges, along with six conservative Supreme Court justices, who, given the opportunity, now have the authority to essentially rewrite any ambiguous administrative regulations almost as they see fit.
In addition, in Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court also granted the president complete immunity over any “official acts” made while in office — a massive win for the former president, the implications for which are still largely unknown.
While Trump has publicly renounced Project 2025 with claims to blacklist anyone involved with it, that may be easier said than done. Project 2025’s long list of credits includes more than 150 former Trump officials and staffers. Trump’s VP pick J.D. Vance also has ties to the Heritage Foundation, and he even wrote the foreword to Kevin Roberts’ upcoming book.
“[Trump] has lied so many times. I mean, my sense is that he’s also doesn’t know much about the environment, and he blurts out these things when they ask about it,” Sellers said. “So he’s going to really delegate, and because he doesn’t know really what he’s doing there, other than broad symbolic gestures. So I think he’s going to delegate, there’s a stable of people there to whom he can delegate now… I think that’s that’s a signal to me that Project 25, at least on the environmental front, [has] kind of a green light should Trump get in there.”
To that point, Lifset concurred. “I agree with that. And I’d add that Republican administrations for the last two or three decades have largely outsourced energy environmental policy to the oil and gas industry.”
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