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Daily Caller

‘Third Rail’: Here’s Why Team Kamala Isn’t Peddling The Typical Dem Climate Panic This Election

Published

3 months ago

10 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Nick Pope

 

Vice President Kamala Harris has been tight-lipped about her record on climate change while major green groups continue to support her anyways — a dynamic that political pundits and energy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation is no accident.

Harris — who called climate change an “existential threat” in 2019 —  previously probed major oil corporations as California’s attorney general and co-sponsored the Green New Deal as a senator, but she has mostly avoided climate change and green energy on the campaign trail, framing the issues in terms of economics, jobs and investment when she does bring up the subject. That many major eco-activist groups are still supporting her indicates that Harris is trying to broaden her appeal to more moderate voters in order to win the election and subsequently govern as a climate hardliner once in office, energy experts and political strategists told the DCNF.

“The Democrats have figured out that the apocalyptic vibe isn’t really likely to bring people along for this particular ride,” Mike McKenna, a GOP strategist with extensive energy sector experience, told the DCNF. “So, they have obviously made a command decision to focus only on the carrots and ignore anything that looks like a stick.”

Harris and her running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have campaigned on climate issues in passing, but eco-activist leaders are generally unconcerned about the lack of focus on the issue, according to The New York Times. Walz did not address climate change during his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic National Convention , sticking primarily to his background as a rural American.

Even after the Harris campaign walked back her previous support for a fracking ban, a slew of environmental organizations opposed to fracking endorsed her candidacy. The campaign’s apparent strategy of not focusing much on climate change “suggests that Democrats see talking about the environment as a lose-lose proposition” in this election cycle, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

“They know what she’s going to do. There’s no upside to talking about climate,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, told the DCNF. “Keep in mind, I believe it was in July of 2022, The New York Times ran a poll reporting that only 1% of voters prioritize climate. So it’s a loser issue … And they can’t afford to lose Pennsylvania. So, they don’t want to talk about climate, because when you talk about climate, then you have to talk about fracking, and then they’re going to have to talk about how she wants to stop fracking, regardless of what she says.”

Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has pursued one of the most aggressive state-level climate agendas in the U.S. in his tenure as governor, recently told the NYT that he doesn’t think Harris needs to leverage her climate record on the campaign trail.

“I am not concerned,” Inslee told the NYT. “I am totally confident that when she is in a position to effect positive change, she will.”

Moreover, the political wings of three green groups — the League of Conservation Voters, Climate Power and the Environmental Defense Fund — are spending $55 million on swing state advertisements to boost Harris, but the first threeads released do not actually address climate change. The ads back into the subject of green energy and pitch Harris’ record on the issue as centered on protecting ordinary Americans from greedy corporations and promoting “advanced manufacturing and clean energy” as a means of helping the middle class.

This approach is different than the one Harris used during her first run for the presidency in the 2020 cycle, in which Harris attempted to outflank many of her Democratic opponents from the left by endorsing policies like carbon taxes, changes to dietary guidelines to decrease red meat consumption and a ban on plastic straws to complement a fracking ban.

Eco-activists and climate-focused voters “definitely believe she will go left, left, left on climate and energy,” Scott Jennings, a political strategist and on-air pundit for CNN, told the DCNF. “Of course they do. Her 2020 campaign agenda is what they are banking on. And I assume she will deliver for them if she wins.”

President Joe Biden also made climate a key aspect of his successful 2020 campaign, guaranteeing that he would end fossil fuels and calling former President Donald Trump a “climate arsonist” who was failing to protect Americans from the “ravages of climate change,” according to Inside Climate News. Nevertheless, Biden and his top officials still frequently drew the ire of hardline climate activists despite the administration pursuing what it describes as the “most ambitious climate agenda in history.”

Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to secure the 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill. While its price tag has ballooned from initial estimates and some contend that the bill has actually worsened inflation, the IRA unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars of private and public spending on green energy and manufacturing projects.

The Biden-Harris administration touts that investment as evidence that its domestic agenda is working.

“The climate activists in the Democrat Party have finally realized that no one is buying their ‘climate emergency’ claptrap anymore or their claims of 5, 10, or 20 years left to ‘save the planet.’ Instead, they are pedaling a barrage of silly economic claims that somehow pouring hundreds of billions and now trillions of dollars into government centrally planned projects,” Marc Morano, the publisher of Climate Depot, told the DCNF. “This new Democrat climate messaging, where they don’t mention climate, is part of the legacy of the Inflation Reduction Act, where local communities and certain states get unlimited federal funds poured into them via taxpayers to create a ‘green economy.’”

Len Foxwell, a Democratic strategist based in Maryland, said that the Harris campaign’s lack of attention to climate change and green energy issues is deliberate given her need to secure the support of a broad coalition if she is to win in November.

“First and foremost, Kamala Harris’ responsibility in this race is to win it. And to do so, she has to present her priorities in a way that resonates with those who are concerned about the economy and frustrated with their own financial situations. Specifically, she has to emphasize the opportunities that exist for better jobs, higher wages and long-term cost savings for the ratepayers,” Foxwell told the DCNF. “This is particularly imperative when discussing renewable energy investment, because the upfront costs tend to be considerable and the financial benefits to the middle class are largely speculative.”

As the Democratic candidate for the presidency, Harris “has to communicate her vision and values in a way that attracts the broadest possible coalition,” though it remains to be seen how she would actually govern if elected given uncertainty about the future balance of power in Congress, according to Foxwell. Harris and her team must take care to not propose policies that would increase the cost of living for middle class Americans, which would be “third rail” politics given how concerned people are about the economy, he added.

The Harris campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

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Daily Caller

Panda Conservation Projects Backfiring After American Zoos Dished Out Millions To China

Published on December 2, 2024

By

Giant Panda at the Atlanta Zoo. Creative Commons license -Flickr/Rob

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Ireland Owens

American zoos have dished out millions to China for panda conservation projects, but the money has instead largely been spent developing China’s economy, according to The New York Times.

U.S. zoos have sent tens of millions of dollars to China for the right to host pandas in the U.S., according to the NYT. Despite the U.S. government requiring that the funds be allocated toward panda conservation, the Chinese government has spent millions on various other expenses, including roads, apartment buildings and museums.

American zoos pay around $1 million annually to receive pandas from China, according to the NYT. Some of the American zoos were aware that the funds were not always being used to protect pandas, but were concerned that they may have to stop displaying pandas and return them to China if the payments ceased.

Many American zoos rely on displaying pandas to boost merchandise sales and attract visitors, according to the NYT. Some U.S. regulators have previously raised concerns about Chinese administrator’s use of the funds, and regulators halted payments to China in 2003 due to inadequate documentation.

“There was always pushing back and forth about how the U.S. shouldn’t ask anything,” Kenneth Stansell, a former Fish and Wildlife official, told the NYT.

Two giant Chinese pandas arrived in Washington, D.C. in October and are set to debut at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in January 2025, according to CNN. The zoo has already begun to release panda-themed merchandise, according to Washingtonian.

“It’s really alarming that they’re approving these things in the first place,” said Delcianna Winders, an animal-law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, the NYT reported. “And then there’s no follow-up to track that the money is actually going to what it’s supposed to be going to.”

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Canada Scrambles To Secure Border After Trump Threatens Massive Tariff

Published on December 2, 2024

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

The Canadian government made clear its beefing up its border security apparatus after President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose sweeping tariffs against Canada and Mexico if the flow of illegal immigration and drugs are not reined in.

Trump in November announced on social media that he would impose a 25% tariff on all products from Canada and Mexico unless both countries do more to limit the level of illicit drugs and illegal immigration entering into the United States. In response, Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the president-elect at his residence in Mar-a-Largo and his government has detailed what more it’s doing to bolster immigration enforcement.

“We got, I think, a mutual understanding of what they’re concerned about in terms of border security,” Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc, who accompanied Trudeau at Mar-a-Largo, said of the meeting in an interview with Canadian media. “All of their concerns are shared by Canadians and by the government of Canada.”

“We talked about the security posture currently at the border that we believe to be effective, and we also discussed additional measures and visible measures that we’re going to put in place over the coming weeks,” LeBlanc continued. “And we also established, Rosemary, a personal series of rapport that I think will continue to allow us to make that case.”

Trudeau’s Liberal Party-led government has pivoted on border enforcement since its first days in power.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) — the country’s law enforcement arm that patrols the border — is preparing to beef up its immigration enforcement capabilities by hiring more staff, adding more vehicles and creating more processing facilities, in the chance that there is an immigration surge sparked by Trump’s presidential election victory. The moves are a change in direction from Trudeau’s public declaration in January 2017 that Canada was a “welcoming” country and that “diversity is our strength” just days after Trump was sworn into office the first time.

While encounters along the U.S.-Canada border remain a fraction of what’s experienced at the southern border, activity has risen in recent months. Border Patrol agents made nearly 24,000 apprehensions along the northern border in fiscal year 2024 — marking a roughly 140% rise in apprehensions made the previous fiscal year, according to the latest data from Customs and Border Protection.

“While a change to U.S. border policy could result in an increase in migrants traveling north toward the Canada-U.S. border and between ports of entry, the RCMP now has valuable tools and insights to address this movement that were not previously in place,” read an RCMP statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “New mechanisms have been established which enable the RCMP to effectively manage apprehensions of irregular migrants between the ports.”

Trudeau’s pivot on illegal immigration enforcement follows the Canadian population growing more hawkish on the issue, public opinion surveys have indicated. Other polls also indicate Trudeau’s Liberal Party will face a beating at the voting booth in October 2025 against the Conservative Party, led by Member of Parliament Pierre Poilievre.

Trudeau’s recent overtures largely differ from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has indicated she is not willing to bend the knee to Trump’s tariff threats. The Mexican leader in November said “there will be a response in kind” to any tariff levied on Mexican goods going into the U.S., and she appeared to deny the president-elect’s claims that she agreed to do more to beef up border security in a recent phone call.

Trump, who has vowed to embark on an incredibly hawkish immigration agenda once he re-enters office, has tapped a number of hardliners to lead his efforts. The president-elect announced South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan to serve as border czar and longtime aide Stephen Miller to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy.

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