As a rookie on Capitol Hill in early 2017, Kamala Harris was excited to join the Senate’s top environmental committee.
Harris had spoken about the committee to her predecessor in her California Senate seat, Barbara Boxer, who had served as the panel’s top Democrat for a decade.
Boxer “said to me, ‘You will enjoy being a part of this committee. Because on the most fundamental issues, like toxic substances, it is nonpartisan, the work that we do,’” Harris said during an October 2017 hearing. “I was eager, for that reason, to be a part of this committee.”
Harris served on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for a year before she left for a seat on the Judiciary Committee.
“Senator Harris came up to me yesterday at the Caucus lunch and she said, ‘I’m moving off your committee,’” EPW’s top Democrat Tom Carper of Delaware said in 2018. “She said, ‘It’s not because I’m not interested in the issues, I’m keenly interested in the issues and very much want to be part of your extended family,’” Carper said.
Harris’ year on the environment committee offers a glimpse into her views on a vast array of environmental topics, ranging from nuclear waste and Superfund sites to quagga mussels. The California senator also waded into regulatory and environmental issues from her perch on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Her views on environmental issues have been thoroughly scrutinized in the past as she ran for president and joined the Democratic ticket as Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 election cycle, but her track record on policy is getting renewed attention now that she’s the Democratic presidential nominee.
And while Harris hasn’t publicly released a detailed campaign platform on the environment, her Senate record offers clues about where she stands on a wide range of issues, including some that are unlikely to emerge on the campaign but that would certainly fall under her purview if she’s elected president.
Superfund sites
Contaminated Superfund sites were a key concern for the then-California senator.
Harris noted during a March 2017 hearing that her home state has the second-largest number of Superfund sites in the nation after New Jersey.
She questioned EPA and Army Corps of Engineers officials during that hearing about the cleanup of California sites, including Halaco Engineering’s former secondary metal smelting operation in Oxnard.
The company “started dumping in 1965, and there was a 1997 cease-and-desist order from the Army Corps, which was ignored for about three decades, so there was continuing pollution in the coastal wetlands,” Harris said.
“The cleanup is ongoing, but I think you would probably agree it should not take that long,” she said as she pressed agency officials about their plans to speed up Superfund investigations.
Harris also wanted an update on efforts to clean up the Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine Superfund site in Lake County, California.
“The EPA estimates that 2 million cubic yards of mine waste still pollute Clear Lake, and the EPA has not yet taken significant remedial action, I am told, to control the contamination in the surrounding groundwater,” Harris said at the time.
EPA announced a final cleanup plan for that site in December 2023.
Nuclear waste
Harris expressed concerns about nuclear waste disposal, pointing to public skepticism surrounding the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego.
“One of my general concerns about how nuclear waste is disposed of is that even if there is some of it that remains, it presents a serious challenge and harm to the health of the people in that community,” Harris said during a March 2017 hearing.
Harris pointed to the San Onofre plant, which was “nationally scrutinized, beginning in 2012, for concerns over the radioactive leaks and potential fire concerns,” she said. “I can tell you, living close to that community, many families, many children [were] very concerned about the health consequences of what happened there.”
Southern California Edison, the owner of the San Onofre station, announced in 2013 that it would close permanently following a leak of radioactive material.
Also in March 2017, Harris voted against bipartisan nuclear energy legislation, which she said was due to her concerns about the San Onofre station.
The “promising legislation has the potential to expand research and development opportunities for advanced nuclear energy by updating policies of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep pace with the technology of this growing industry,” Harris said at that time.
“However, real concerns from the public regarding the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in my home State of California still resonate with me,” she said.
“It has negatively affected the surrounding community and its residents in San Diego County. Therefore, it is my firm belief that our Committee should continue to carefully review the rapid progress of advanced nuclear energy projects to ensure their safety and reliability in guaranteeing safety to the general public.”
She hoped to continue working with her colleagues, she said, to find a solution to safely dispose of “any and all radioactive waste that is produced by nuclear energy power plants.”
Invasive species
Harris expressed concerns about the invasive species quagga mussels in written questions to the head of the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2017.
In Lake Tahoe, the region that borders California and Nevada, Harris wrote at the time, the quagga mussel “threatens the ecosystem and the livelihood of the surrounding community, whose economy largely depends on the recreation and hospitality industry.”
Harris pointed to congressional funding to manage invasive species like the quagga mussel, and pressed the FWS on how the funds had been used to improve Lake Tahoe. More broadly, she asked how the FWS policies on invasive species could be applied nationwide to areas like the Great Lakes.
PFAS
Harris called PFAS (short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) a “critical public health issue” during a 2018 hearing in the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“These chemicals can accumulate and stay in the human body for long periods of time with potentially devastating impact,” Harris said.
“As we learn more about the toxic nature of these chemicals, it is critical that the government take steps to protect public health, improve data gathering and transparency, increase public awareness and education, and make decisions based in fact and hard science.”
Harris was also “very troubled by reports” that Trump administration officials “sought to block publication of a report on this PFAS contamination crisis because they feared ‘a potential public relations nightmare,’” she said. “Our government should not pretend that PFAS contamination is not happening, and we should do something about it.”
The Trump administration had sought to block publication of a federal health study of PFAS, emails revealed, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a “public relations nightmare.”
Environmental nominees
From her perch on the Senate environment committee, Harris was critical of then-President Donald Trump’s nominees for key agency slots.
She criticized Trump’s picks to serve as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and as EPA deputy administrator in 2017 as she urged her colleagues to vote against them.
The nominees, Kathleen Hartnett White for CEQ and Andrew Wheeler for EPA, “are the latest in a pattern by this administration to send us candidates with work experience that directly conflicts the mission that they are supposed to execute,” Harris said at the time.
Harris pointed to Wheeler’s past work as a fossil fuel lobbyist and to Hartnett White’s past comment that the fossil fuel industry helped end slavery.
Wheeler secured confirmation as EPA’s deputy administrator and later as administrator. Hartnett White’s confirmation was later withdrawn.
Planning for climate change
Harris was concerned in 2018 that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had removed climate change references from its strategic plan.
“The previous plan, which covered 2014 through 2018, specifically mentioned climate and climate change seven times and devoted an entire section to how climate change impacts the risks that communities face,” Harris told then-FEMA Administrator Brock Long.
When it comes to devastating natural disasters, “We cannot plan for the future, I believe, without acknowledging, understanding, and incorporating the impacts of climate change,” Harris said.
Long replied, “Look, I believe the climate is changing.” But, he said, the strategic plan did not mention earthquakes, school shootings or other specific hazards.
“It does not mention anything specifically because we are an all-hazards agency regardless of cause or frequency,” Long told her. “I cannot solve climate change. That would be similar to me saying, ‘Let us stop plate tectonics and stop earthquakes as well while we are at it.’”
