Eco-activists are drafting wishlists of environmental policies for a potential Harris administration after mostly giving Vice President Kamala Harris a pass on her stances throughout the presidential campaign, according to Bloomberg News.
Harris — who endorsed a fracking ban and other hardline climate positions when running for president in the 2020 election cycle — and her campaign have repeatedly tried to assure voters that she has moderated on energy issues, and environmental activists mostly have not pressured or protested the vice president despite her apparent shift in policy. However, green activists are now working on plans for a prospective Harris administration that consist of radical policies like invoking emergency power to effectively ban crude oil exports, according to Bloomberg News.
Harris Campaign Official Dodges As CNN Host Presses Him On VP’s Fracking Flip-Flop pic.twitter.com/WMuaFmEIyO
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Some eco-activists are drawing up plans for limiting liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and terminating the Dakota Access Pipeline while proposing that Harris use special emergency powers to slash public financial support for fossil fuel infrastructure projects and enact a de facto ban on oil exports, according to Bloomberg News. Meanwhile, other environmentalists also want to see a prospective Harris administration use the Department of Justice (DOJ) to go after oil companies for their response to climate change, as numerous Democrat-run jurisdictions have done in recent years.
“We need more than platitudes,” said Collin Rees, a member of Oil Change International, according to Bloomberg News. “We’re looking for specific pledges: a permanent halt to new LNG exports, a rejection of the disastrous Dakota Access Pipeline and a clear plan to phase out fossil fuel production and end environmental injustice.”
Another wishlist item for some environmentalists is expanding the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill that may end up spending more than $1 trillion to facilitate green technology production and adoption, according to Bloomberg News. Doing so includes broadening existing subsidies and tax breaks or trying to resuscitate provisions that ultimately did not make it into the final bill.
Moreover, an attempt to secure the “IRA 2.0” could also facilitate the creation of a de facto carbon tariff, which many energy sector experts have described as a gateway to a domestic carbon tax, according to Bloomberg News.
Environmentalists consistently pressured President Joe Biden and his top officials to make concessions throughout his presidency, but they have not meaningfully done so since Harris replaced him as the Democratic nominee, according to Bloomberg News. Harris appears to be trying to maintain her appeal to moderate voters, particularly in energy-rich Pennsylvania, ahead of the election without repudiating the environmental activists with whom she is actually more aligned on crucial policy matters, energy sector experts and political pundits previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Harris has mostly avoided discussing climate change and energy policy on the campaign trail beyond driving home her fracking flip-flop, though an 82-page Harris campaign policy document states that the vice president will “work to lower household energy costs” and “[keep] the well-paid union jobs of the future here at home” with her policies.
The Harris campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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