Can Kamala Harris convince Pennsylvania that an ambitious climate policy comes with jobs? The vice president will need to make that case if, as expected, she replaces President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, writes Ben Storrow. The swing state is one of the country’s main producers of fossil fuels — and potentially key to winning the presidency. Biden, who won the state in 2020, threaded the needle with the Inflation Reduction Act, his signature climate law that threw billions of dollars toward clean energy. Passing the law came down to the partnership between fossil fuel ally Sen. Joe Manchin — once a Democrat, now an independent — and Scranton Joe, the pro-union president. The idea was to show that cutting planet-warming pollution — by investing in wind and solar power, electric cars and industrial retrofits — can create jobs just as well as oil and gas production. But both Joes are now heading for the exits. It will be up to Harris, a former prosecutor from California, to convince Pennsylvania voters that they don’t have to choose between the environment and their livelihood. This week, Ben visited Pittsburgh to find out whether Harris could win over the local unions that have so fiercely backed Biden. The bottom line: She’ll have to work for it. ”I don’t know what her stance is on energy,” Steamfitters Local 449 business manager Kenneth Broadbent told Ben. His union, he said, has a “closer ideology” with Republicans on energy policy but would still likely fall in behind Harris if she becomes the Democratic nominee. Darrin Kelly, who leads the AFL-CIO’s Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council, spent part of his Monday touting the Biden administration’s climate investments to a crowd at a Pittsburgh concrete plant. The plant is one of numerous industrial facilities that will get a retrofit courtesy of $396 million coming to the state from Biden’s climate law. But Ben found some small signs that enthusiasm for green jobs isn't trickling all the way down to the rank and file. One employee at the concrete plant told him that while he didn't really like any of his choices for president, he planned to vote for former President Donald Trump. And Frank Gray, a fourth-generation Steamfitter who works as an instructor, said many of his students support the former president. An enthusiastic supporter of Biden, Gray said he constantly reminds them of Trump’s attempts to weaken unions. Harris, he said, “might be a little bit too far left for what I want but she’s way better than the alternative choice if she continues on what her and Biden have been doing.”
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