Vice President Kamala Harris has a more progressive energy record than President Joe Biden, but it’s unclear how that will play with voters if she secures the Democratic presidential nomination.
Biden ended his reelection bid Sunday after increasing pressure from Democrats following his widely panned debate performance. His endorsement of Harris makes her the frontrunner for his replacement — but uncertainty reigns as Democrats scramble to organize a new 2024 ticket ahead of the party’s convention on Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.
Some environmentalists are already putting their weight behind Harris, who they expect would largely continue Biden’s effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions as the effects of climate change increasingly ravage the globe.
“The president has always recognized what it takes to deliver a better future for the country. And today’s decision is another example of that same forward-looking leadership,” said Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, a Democrat-allied group. “It’s the same kind of patriotism that animates Vice President Kamala Harris — the next president of the United States.”
Harris’ energy record as a senator, and later as a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary of 2020, was to the left of Biden’s on many issues and sharply critical of the oil and gas industry.
She called for an end to hydraulic fracturing — a drilling technique in the oil and gas industry that uses chemicals and water to fracture rock and release hydrocarbons. She also urged a ban on plastic straws and called for the end of the filibuster, a Senate legislative tool that ensures some members of the minority party have to sign off on most legislation.
Harris was one of the original co-sponsors of the Green New Deal, the nonbinding resolution introduced in 2019 by Democratic progressives like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey. The resolution stalled, but some of its ideas made it into the Inflation Reduction Act — and Republicans often use the phrase as shorthand for policies they say attack fossil fuels.
She also co-sponsored the Climate Equity Act of 2020, which would have created an arm of the Congressional Budget Office to score legislation based on effects to historically disadvantaged communities.
After becoming Biden’s vice presidential candidate, Harris made it clear that the Biden ticket did not intend to ban fracking — a practice important for the oil industry in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.
But as California’s attorney general, Harris sued the Obama administration’s Interior Department in 2016 over potential fracking off the state’s coastline, characterizing the practice as a “threat to the health and well-being of California communities.”
“We must balance our energy needs with our longstanding commitment to protecting our natural resources and public health,” Harris said at the time. She also launched a probe into whether Exxon Mobil lied to the public about climate change.
If Harris becomes the Democratic nominee, her prior positions on hot-button issues like fracking will be used by the Trump campaign to paint her as a more extreme candidate than Biden, said Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College.
“Harris will be more open to attack on anti-fracking positions,” he said in an email. “While fracking isn’t a highly salient issue to most Pennsylvania voters, the issue can have an impact on a key slice of the electorate in a state where presidential elections are won on the margins.”
However, new funding for clean energy and related infrastructure has been actively sought by many swing states headed by Democratic governors, such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.
That would provide Harris a platform “to make her case in offering a vivid alternative to the emerging Trump-Vance plan focused exclusively on fossil fuels,” Rabe said.
In a research note Sunday, Clearview Energy Partners said the campaign may now also see a “stepped-up emphasis on climate policy as a way to reinvigorate support from the under-30 voters whose turnout could potentially decide closely contested swing states.”
Climate hawks joined the charge to replace Biden in recent weeks, arguing that a new candidate was needed to beat Trump. The Republican nominee has denied climate science and spent part of his speech at the Republican National Convention pledging to get rid of Biden’s “green new scam.”
“I am deeply relieved that President Biden passed the torch. This bold decision will help our climate and our democracy fight on for another day,” Michael Greenberg, founder of Climate Defiance, said Sunday. The activist group, which regularly confronts administration officials with demands for more climate action, had called for a change in the Democratic ticket.
‘Not a protectionist’
Some energy groups appeared cautious Sunday not to favor any presidential hopeful, a nod to the deep uncertainty over who will preside over the country in January 2025 and what their politics on energy will be.
The National Ocean Industries Association represents offshore wind interests that fear a second Trump administration will fetter their industry — as well as oil companies that fear progressive policies will sink their future drilling opportunities. The group responded Sunday to Biden’s exit with a plea for lawmakers to support all offshore industries.
“Our message to policymakers remains clear: a balanced and forward-thinking approach to energy policy is essential,” NOIA President Erik Milito said in a statement. “This includes supporting the full spectrum of offshore energy resources — oil, gas, wind, carbon capture, critical minerals, and other emerging energy segments.”
The Biden administration has been a powerful advocate for offshore wind growth, approving the first nine offshore wind projects in the nation.
But under Harris and Biden, the offshore oil and gas industry faced tougher rules for cleaning up old infrastructure in the ocean and the smallest number of offshore oil auctions in the program’s history.
Still, the U.S. currently produces more crude oil and natural gas than any country in history.
Trump has committed to blocking the spread of offshore wind if he regains office and promised to “drill, baby, drill” during his speech at the RNC last week.
It’s impossible to forecast Harris’ particular positions on major environmental policies. But one Department of Energy official, who spoke to POLITICO’s E&E News on the condition of anonymity Friday ahead of Biden’s announcement, said that if Harris became president, she would likely continue DOE’s efforts to fund innovative clean energy technologies.
“I don’t think anyone anticipates that that would have a big change in our work,” said the official. “The work we do at least has been so deeply supportive by the administration.”
Harris would likely take drastically different positions than Trump on many issues that are key to U.S. energy interests. First and foremost, a Harris administration would aim to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, while a new Trump administration would likely not.
But the difference might also extend to trade. Trump has said he would impose significant tariffs, including a possible 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports, in a bid to protect American manufacturing.
The oil and gas industry has said that could raise prices and create retaliatory trade policies. Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, said the industry is “very concerned” by Trump’s tariff proposals.
Harris slammed then-President Trump’s trade record as “erratic” in a 2019 presidential primary debate.
“I am not a protectionist Democrat,” she said. “We need to sell our stuff. And that means we need to sell it to people overseas. That means we need trade policies that allow that to happen.”
She also said China needs to be “held accountable” for intellectual property theft and other issues, but should be a partner on climate action and security issues.
On Sunday, as Harris began shoring up support for her bid, she slammed Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump administration partly penned by his former appointees and helmed by the Heritage Foundation.
The document, which Trump has tried to distance himself from, calls for the repeal of the 2022 climate law and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, as well as the elimination of several DOE offices, including the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Loan Programs Office and the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.
Environmental and climate organizations are hoping a new Democratic ticket will prevent that future from becoming reality, with many welcoming Biden’s decision to end his campaign.
“We commend him for taking that step to protect his climate achievements and our democracy,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate group, in a statement Sunday. Sunrise, one the national organizations that called for Biden to quit in recent weeks, pushed for a “bold” climate strategy from the Democrat chosen to replace Biden and pledged to mobilize young voters.
“We’re ready to go full-steam ahead talking with young people about the stakes of this election,” the group wrote.
Reporter Christa Marshall contributed.
