A look back into Harris' future

Jul 23, 2024

THE BIG IDEA

Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., Monday, July 22, 2024.

Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del. | Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool

KAMALA’S CLIMATE — Sustainability-minded voters still coming to terms with the prospect of a Democratic ticket headed by Vice President Kamala Harris have plenty of questions about where she stands on key issues. And we may find some answers by looking into her past.

Early signs suggest that she might re-energize some of the young environmental crowd that had soured on President Joe Biden — and she's already locked up endorsements from four big green groups that backed him before he decided to end his campaign.

During her tenure as California attorney general, Harris defended the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and amassed tens of millions of dollars against large fossil fuel companies.

While serving in the U.S. Senate, she signed onto the Green New Deal, sponsored legislation to better address cumulative impacts on overburdened communities and proposed a $10 trillion climate plan, Kelsey Tamborrino reports.

There’s good reason to think Harris would continue, and possibly even expand, Biden’s focus on equity and the disproportionate impacts that overburdened low-income and communities of color face from pollution.

Harris was into environmental justice issues before it was cool. She created a unit focused on the issue in 2005 when she was serving as San Francisco district attorney.

“I remember as DA, she was very focused on pollution issues,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who worked on her campaign for that office, told your host. “She was obviously very serious about prosecuting violent crime. But she also was always serious about holding corporate polluters accountable and making sure that no one is above the law.”

Harris' disdain for fracking for fossil fuel extraction is also well-documented. She even sued the Obama administration as California AG to stop plans to frack off the state’s coastline.

While she walked back her stance to align with Biden’s opposition to banning it once she was tapped to be his running mate, that history of opposition could come back to haunt her in Pennsylvania, an energy-rich swing state that could be pivotal in November, Brian Dabbs and Heather Richards report for POLITICO’s E&E News.

“Harris will be more open to attack on anti-fracking positions,” said Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College. "While fracking isn't a highly salient issue to most Pennsylvania voters, the issue can have an impact on a key slice of the electorate in a state where presidential elections are won on the margins."

WASHINGTON WATCH

SPENDING SPREE — The Environmental Protection Agency is going to have to guard against the potential for a large pot of money from President Joe Biden’s signature climate law to become a colossal example of government waste.

Congress dictated that money from the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund needs to be doled out by Sept. 30 to eliminate the potential for it to be yanked away if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House. But a shoestring operating budget and short timeline for distributing the money dedicated to projects in low-income communities is triggering concern of mismanagement.

“The concern is legitimate,” said Matthew Tejada, a former deputy assistant administrator at the agency who worked on the program before leaving in December. “EPA got more money than it could have ever imagined, and time lines — deadlines — that were as close to wildly unrealistic as you can get.”

EPA told Jean Chemnick of POLITICO’s E&E News that the program’s budget is the smallest amount of money allotted to any federal agency for running any IRA program, as a percentage of the initiative’s total funding. EPA Administrator Michael Regan and lawmakers have expressed concerns about the agency’s ability to keep track of all the money, though agency spokesperson Timothy Carroll said EPA is “confident it will maintain strong oversight” and that they are putting “robust controls in place.”

AROUND THE NATION

EJ TEST — A landmark New Jersey law meant to discourage new pollution in historically overburdened minority and low-income communities is being put to the test after the state signed off on a new gas-powered plant in Newark.

Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration cited the law in deciding to impose what it describes as strict conditions on the operations of the city’s fifth natural gas plant once it’s built, including a stipulation that it can only be run in emergencies. But opponents have criticized the approval as an about-face and argued that a future administration could easily lift those restrictions, Ry Rivard reports.

“I feel like regs and policy and mission-driven agendas, if they are not codified in some way, there is an opportunity for any future administration to redirect course,” said state Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz.

Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette acknowledged the concerns but defended the decision.

“That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be political forces that come to play to undo that,” he said. “But there are layers of legal guardrails to prevent that very thing, because we knew that very thing going into developing the law.”

WEIRD SCIENCE

SUNNY WITH A CHANCE OF GEOENGINEERING — A tiny environmental nonprofit has pitched Washington’s political and policy powerhouses on a controversial plan to limit global warming by blocking sunlight from hitting Earth.

Planetary Sunshade Foundation representatives met with officials from the White House and the State Department as well as congressional lawmakers to discuss solar geoengineering, a theoretical mitigation effort that the group suggests could use reflective spacecraft to deflect sunlight.

The technology would be expensive and would do nothing to address other harms caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and it also carries an assortment of risks including the potential for dangerous temperature spikes, Corbin Hiar reports for POLITICO’s E&E News.

"I don't want to minimize these concerns," said Morgan Goodwin, the group's unpaid executive director. But "we don't think any of them are deal-breakers."

Live briefings, policy trackers, and procedural, industry, and people intelligence from POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy this election cycle. Secure your seat.

YOU TELL US

GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. Join us every Tuesday as we keep you in the loop on the world of sustainability.

Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott and reporters Jordan Wolman and Allison Prang. Reach us all at gmott@politico.com, jwolman@politico.com and aprang@politico.com.

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WHAT WE'RE CLICKING

— Porsche has dialed back its plans for transitioning to electric vehicles, saying the shift away from gas-powered cars will take longer than it initially expected, according to Reuters.

— The collapse of the carbon-credit market is stymieing efforts to fight climate change in developing countries. The Wall Street Journal has that story.

— Artificial intelligence has helped advance weather and climate prediction models in ways that could in turn help refine machine learning, The Financial Times reports.

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