Where Harris and Her Potential Running Mates Stand on Climate Change

Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race — bowing to weeks of pressure after a disastrous June debate and polls that showed worsening odds against his Republican rival, Donald Trump — upends the contest only weeks before Democrats meet in Chicago to confirm their nominee. Biden, 81, is the first sitting US president not to seek reelection for decades.

He’s been a uniquely consequential leader on climate, most notably by signing the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in reducing emissions and boosting clean energy in the nation’s history. Biden pledged that the US would halve its emissions by 2030. He rejoined the Paris Agreement after Trump pulled the US out of it and created the role of special presidential envoy for climate, among other actions. That presents a stark contrast to Trump, 78, who has called for gutting the IRA and frequently bashes electric vehicles and wind power. 

Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the Democrats’ ticket, and she said she intends to win the nomination. Many Democrats were quick to endorse her, including Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Congressional Black Caucus. 

But there are still many unknowns. Challengers could emerge, leading to a contested or brokered convention. Here’s a rundown of the climate resumes of Harris and her potential running-mates if she clinches the nomination. (Others being talked about for the new ticket include Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.)

Kamala Harris

As VP, Harris has often acted as spokesperson for her boss’s climate priorities at home and abroad. She was one of several administration officials who fanned out across the country last year to tout the one-year anniversary of the IRA. Harris, 59, stood in for Biden at last year’s COP28 climate summit, where she announced that the US would contribute $3 billion to a climate aid fund for developing countries. 

Back in 2019, when Harris (then a US senator from California) launched a presidential bid, her climate agenda was more ambitious than Biden’s. She supported a carbon tax and proposed $10 trillion in private and public climate spending. She also said she would work to ban fracking. That prompted Republican attacks when Biden became the Democrats’ nominee and chose her as his running mate. 

In the Senate she sponsored climate equity bills and backed an effort by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to shut down the Dakota Access pipeline. However, she chose to leave the Environment and Public Works Committee — which her predecessor Barbara Boxer had chaired — in favor of a seat on Judiciary. 

Harris has a record of fighting oil and gas companies and prioritizing environmental justice in particular. In 2016, as California’s attorney general, she sued Southern California Gas Co. for a methane leak near Los Angeles that led to the evacuation of 4,000 families. She sued BP Plc the same year for violating storage laws at roughly 780 gas stations. Both the utility and BP eventually agreed to pay millions to settle the cases. 

Gretchen Whitmer

Whitmer reportedly does not plan to challenge Harris for the nomination. 

Whitmer, 52, won a second term as Michigan’s governor in 2022. In her first term she signed an executive order to make the state’s economy carbon neutral by the middle of the century, with an intermediate goal of cutting climate emissions to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. 

A legislative package she signed into law last year moved the state’s climate priorities forward. Under its clean-energy standard, Michigan should produce all of its energy from clean sources by 2040. 

“Once I sign these bills, Michigan becomes a national leader on clean energy,” Whitmer, a former state lawmaker, said at a signing ceremony. “Together, we are protecting our air, our water and our land while focusing on taking climate change head on.”

Her administration moved to shut down an oil pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac that she and other opponents say threatens the health of the Great Lakes, but a plan to replace the pipeline has continued to advance through permitting.

Josh Shapiro

Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro endorsed Harris on Sunday. 

He took legal action on climate while the state’s attorney general, including joining a 2018 lawsuit that accused the Trump administration of failing to control methane emissions from oil and gas operations. His office brought criminal charges against several companies for environmental crimes. 

Running for governor in 2022, Shapiro said he supported “responsible fracking” while declining to say whether he would keep Pennsylvania in the the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state cooperative to limit carbon emissions. 

This March, Shapiro announced a plan to fight climate change, calling for legislation that would create a standalone carbon-pricing program to replace the RGGI — currently the subject of a legal challenge that has reached Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court — and to require utilities to buy half their electricity by 2035 from sources that are mostly carbon free. 

Some activists, however, have criticized Shapiro’s environmental record as governor, including an agreement with natural gas company CNX Resources Corp. The governor’s website touts the mitigation steps that CNX agreed to, such as widening setbacks for wells near schools and hospitals.

Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg endorsed Harris on Sunday. 

As US Transportation Secretary under Biden, Buttigieg, 42, has played a key role in implementing the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. He’s also been a frequent messenger for the administration’s broader climate agenda, daring to debate foes in settings many Democrats shun, like on Fox News. 

Buttigieg has emphasized the role of transportation in contributing to climate change and, conversely, the sector’s potential as a solution. He recently spoke about the connection between the warming climate and rising air turbulence. 

He received criticism for waiting almost three weeks to visit East Palestine, Ohio, following the toxic train derailment there, a decision he said he got wrong. 

Before joining Biden’s cabinet, Buttigieg was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. In his 2019 presidential bid, he proposed $2 trillion in federal investment to make the country net zero by 2050.

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