IIt didn’t take long for climate groups, often rigorous in their political demands, to support Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy to succeed her boss as president. In the days following President Biden’s announcement that he would drop out of the presidential race, climate advocates gave Harris praise that some only gave Biden sparingly. Before joining the Biden White House, Harris positioned herself as a champion of aggressive measures to address climate change, such as the Green New Deal, and supporters saw a lot to like in her record.
Harris “could be the climate change agent we need,” the Sunrise Movement, a group of young activists focused on climate change, said in a statement. Six weeks earlier, the group publicly refused to support Biden’s re-election bid.
After Biden’s announcement, Harris left little doubt that she wants to pick up the climate mantle and run with it. Some of his early comments after Biden’s announcement addressed the issue head-on. “As district attorney, to go after polluters, I created one of the first environmental justice units in our country,” she said. “Donald Trump was at Mar-a-Lago and told Big Oil lobbyists that he would accept their offer for a billion-dollar campaign contribution.”
For many on the right, Harris’s enthusiastic climate record represented an opening. Former President Trump’s surrogates praised Harris’ support for the fracking ban as a presidential candidate and focused on her support for the Green New Deal, which Trump has taken to calling the “Green New Deal.” In her opinion, Harris’s record on climate and energy could help undermine her standing in Pennsylvania, a critical state with a substantial oil and gas industry.
Before this week, climate change played a secondary role in conversations surrounding this year’s elections. But the role of energy and weather in the race may have changed – and it’s not exactly clear how that will play out.
As a political issueThere are good arguments that could make both sides feel a certain optimism that Harris’ long-standing climate stance will help their campaigns.
In the weeks leading up to Biden’s exit from the presidential race, polls consistently showed declining support for his candidacy among young people, a voting bloc critical to his 2020 victory. Climate isn’t necessarily the only issue — or even the main one. – in the minds of young people. But it’s pretty important to the young voters in the Democratic base who helped elect Biden in 2020. Sunrise alone says it reached approximately 3.5 million young voters. Many of those voters were angry with Biden after, among other things, the administration approved a massive oil drilling project in Alaska. Harris’ campaign has turned a new page with these groups, benefiting from the enthusiasm of climate-driven voters that Biden has lacked thus far.
For his part, Trump has sought for months to move the energy issue to the center of the electoral conversation. Talking points taking aim at Biden’s energy agenda were presented at rallies in Michigan, where the auto industry is transitioning to electric vehicles, as well as at the Republican National Convention last week. “They spent trillions of dollars on things related to the Green New Coup,” Trump told the audience.
The political logic is simple. Americans consistently rank the economy and inflation as their biggest concerns. Clean energy policies are an easy counterpoint in the fight to reduce costs. Much of this discussion point is not true. When implemented, clean energy is typically cheaper than its fossil fuel alternative. But that doesn’t mean the message doesn’t work.
Recent survey Research of Third Way, a centrist D.C. think tank whose policy prescriptions align more closely with Democrats, found that voters generally prefer candidates who say “we can’t tackle climate change until inflation is under control” over candidates They say that climate change needs to be addressed immediately.
Perhaps more importantly, oil and gas play a significant role in Pennsylvania’s economy, with significant fracking operations in the northern and western regions of the state. The state is practically a must-win for Harris.
In recent days, journalists and commentators have struggled to assess what Harris might mean for the future of climate policy. They pointed to her tough language condemning oil and gas as an indicator that she could take a more aggressive stance as president. They pointed to their long-standing adherence to environmental justice to suggest that the concerns of vulnerable communities can take center stage in the fight against climate change. And they pointed to her involvement in international climate issues to suggest a redoubling of US commitment to this issue abroad.
The truth is that at this juncture it is difficult to assess the full shape of a Harris climate agenda. Its climate policymaking would likely be limited by complicated politics in Congress and a federal court system that is increasingly skeptical of climate action. Certainly, some of his time in office would be spent defending and continuing to implement Biden’s biggest climate measures.
But in contrast to Trump, one thing is clear about a potential Harris presidency: climate policy, in one form or another, would survive.
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