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

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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

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Resets The Energy Policy Playing Field

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Make no mistake about it, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed into law on Friday by President Donald Trump falls neatly in line with the Trump energy and climate agenda. Despite complaints by critics of the deal that Majority Leader John Thune struck with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to soften the bill’s effort to end wind and solar subsidies from the Orwellian 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the OBBBA continues – indeed, accelerates – the Trumpian energy revolution.

Leaders in the oil and gas industry, hamstrung at every opportunity by the Biden presidency, hailed the bill as a chance to move back into some semblance of boom times. Tim Stewart, President of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told his members in a memo that, “For the oil and gas industry, the bill…signals a transformative opportunity to enhance domestic production.”

API CEO Mike Sommers also praised the OBBBA as a positive step for his members: “This historic legislation will help usher in a new era of energy dominance by unlocking opportunities for investment, opening lease sales and expanding access to oil and natural gas development.

While leaders of organizations like those must curb their enthusiasm to some extent in their public statements, they and their peers must be somewhat amazed at how much real substantive change the thin GOP majorities shepherded by Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to stuff into this bill. This industry, historically an easily demonized bogeyman for Democrats and too often ignored by previous Republican presidents, does not experience days as encouraging as July 3 was in the nation’s capital.

Even so, many Republicans, especially in the House, remained unsatisfied by amendments the Senate made to the bill related to IRA subsidy rollbacks. To help Speaker Johnson hold the party’s narrow House majority together, President Trump committed the executive branch to strict enforcement of the new limitations, and promised the White House will work with congressional allies to move a major deregulation package ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

But the OBBBA as passed is chock full of energy and environment-related provisions. FTI Consulting, a business consultancy with a major presence in Washington, DC, published a quick analysis Thursday that projects natural gas and nuclear as the biggest winners as the OBBBA’s impacts begin to take hold across the United States. Interestingly, the analysis also projects battery storage to expand more rapidly over the next five years even as wind and solar suffer from the phasing-out of their IRA subsidies.

The side deal struck by Thune and Murkowski is likely to result in significant new investment into wind and solar facilities as developers strive to get as many projects on the books as possible to meet the “commenced construction” requirement by the July 4, 2026 deadline. The bill’s previous language would have required projects to be placed into service by that time. But even that softer requirement will almost certainly cause a flow of capital investment out of wind and solar once that deadline passes, given the reality that many of their projects are not sustainable without constant flows of government subsidies.

What it all means is that the OBBBA, combined with all the administration’s prior moves to radically shift the direction of federal energy and climate policy away from intermittent energy and electric vehicles back to traditional forms of power generation and internal combustion cars, effectively reset the policy playing field back to 2019, prior to the COVID pandemic. That was a time when America had become as energy independent as it had been in well over half a century and was approaching the “Energy Dominance” position so dear to President Trump’s heart.

Trump’s signing of the OBBBA gives the oil and gas, nuclear, and even the coal industry a chance at a do over. It is an opportunity that comes with great pressure, both from government and the public, to perform. That means rapid expansion in gas power generation unseen in 20 years, rapid development of next generation nuclear, and even a probable chance to permit and build new coal capacity in the near future.

Second chances like this do not come around often. If these great industries fail to grab this brass ring and run with it, it may never come around again. Let’s go, folks.

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.

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‘They Don’t Know What The F*ck They’re Doing’: Trump Unloads On Iran, Israel

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

President Donald Trump expressed frustration Tuesday after Iran broke a ceasefire, prompting retaliation from Israel during a gaggle with reporters on the White House lawn.

Trump announced the ceasefire Monday, saying it was supposed to take effect at 1 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, but Iran fired missiles at Israel Tuesday. Trump vented, saying the countries had been “fighting so long” they couldn’t make peace.

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“You know, when I say okay, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour just drop everything you have on them,” Trump said. “So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because the one rocket that didn’t land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn’t land, I’m not happy about that.”

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard, that they don’t know what the fuck they are doing,” Trump added.

The United States struck facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan related to Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons early Sunday morning local time, using as many as 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators in the operation, which involved a 37-hour flight by seven B-2A Spirit bombers.

The American strikes came ten days after Israel launched a military operation targeting the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has responded with repeated missile attacks on Israeli cities and a refusal to resume negotiations over its efforts to pursue nuclear weapons.

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