DAVID BLACKMON: Here’s Who Would Guide Energy Policy In A Harris-Walz Administration

I almost hate to do it again, since I have already written twice previously about Camila Thorndike, the recently hired “climate engagement director” for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. But Thorndike is turning out to be a bountiful provider of quotes that clearly illustrate the kind of alarmist radicals who would be guiding climate and energy policy in a Harris-Walz administration.

The first strong clue about Thorndike’s proud politically left leanings can be found on her LinkedIn page, where she invited followers to join her in an online event called “Progressive Mobilization for the Planet,” which was hosted Tuesday by radical Democratic Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Ro Khanna of California. 

The literature for the event reads, in part: “We will be hearing from leaders including U.S. Representatives Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal, the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair, about the stakes of this election for the planet – and why Vice President Harris is the only choice. We’ll also be joined by Mark Ruffalo and Sophia Li who will rally us for the final stretch.”

Wow, Khana, Jayapal and Mark Ruffalo, all rolled into one. It almost gives you a Chris Matthews-like tingle down your leg, doesn’t it?

Khanna, of course, served as co-chair for Democratic Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ unsuccessful 2020 presidential run. So, he and Thorndike are probably well acquainted, given that Thorndike worked as Sanders’ energy and environment legislative assistant from May 2021 through August 2022. As if that wasn’t a good enough way to burnish her progressive climate credentials, Thorndike left Sanders’ office in September 2022 to serve in several roles for Rewiring America, a left-wing advocacy group that pushes to electrify everything and eliminate oil and gas.

Those past experiences set Thorndike up as the perfect “climate engagement director” for the final weeks of the Harris-Walz effort.

Thorndike’s X feed is a treasure trove of anti-fossil fuel views. In one X post from October 2021, she wrote, “It’s week one as Director of Policy Programs for Rewiring America. This team, this mission — lucky me!! Onwards with the clean energy revolution. Down with the fossil dictators and oligarchs. Let’s electrify everything.” Mind you, her reference there to “fossil dictators and oligarchs” is targeting executives at America’s oil, gas and coal companies, not Vladimir Putin, Iranian Mullahs, or the leaders of the House of Saud.

Thorndike’s feed is filled with re-tweets of posts from an array of anti-fossil fuel luminaries, and she seems especially fond of old radical Bill McKibben. She re-tweeted one McKibben post from Oct. 11 that reads: “Now that the world’s richest man has fully thrown in with America’s most dishonest politician, it’s clear this election is about one thing only: can our imperfect democracy stand up to this wave of money and lies?”

For the record, The Washington Post reported Monday that “Harris has a huge cash advantage over Trump,” and the “Harris campaign and its allied committees raised more than $1 billion in the third quarter.” Much of that money was raised from billionaires and not a few of the “fossil fuel dictators and oligarchs” referenced by Thorndike herself, many of whom are in fact Democrats.

Oh.

But it gets even more extreme. In May 2022, Thorndike tweeted her belief that “the fossil fuel industry’s ecoterrorism is … great birth control” that causes children to “die young.” In December 2021, she said the fossil fuel industry is “a death cult” which “quietly murders every day.”

Oh.

Everyone has an absolute right to hold strong opinions on key issues impacting our society, and energy and climate policy is no exception. But this kind of extreme demonization of the other side on any issue is beyond the pale, even though it does unarguably place Thorndike right in the mainstream of current Harris-Walz messaging. After all, the campaign’s closing argument appears to consist of various iterations of the former President “Donald Trump is Hitler” nonsense.

Because Vice President Harris has remained so steadfastly obtuse regarding her real positions on energy policy, voters are left to form their own judgments about how things might go. One way to do that is to look at the nature of the people who will be formulating those policies.

So, we should thank Thorndike for all the clarifying comments.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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