Anyone who views the climate crisis as a compelling issue can only be frustrated by how it has been handled in presidential debates over the years—neglected, mostly. And as the first round of debates for the 2020 election arrives, the frustration may be repeated, if for different reasons this time around.
It’s not that the issue won’t come up. It will, driven by climate events in the real world, by the extraordinary record of reversal and denial in Washington, by the emphatic alarms of scientists, and by the loud insistence of activists that candidates and the media alike do their share in focusing the spotlight on the urgency of action. Even if the interrogators don’t emphasize it, some candidates will.
To prepare for the debates, we explored the candidates’ evolution on climate change and early progress in bringing the issue to the forefront in 2020. In the following series of profiles, we focus on the most prominent candidates and those with the most detailed climate proposals, with an eye toward showing the spectrum of policy choices.
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This week, 20 candidates face questioning from a panel of journalists in two rounds, with 10 candidates each evening. With so many candidates and so much ground to cover, there may be only slight attention to climate change. It may be hard to distinguish the candidates’ climate policy positions from one another, let alone to discern the complex details in depth, or to decide which answers are the more coherent, practical or politically appealing.
One goal in these profiles: to help you prepare to watch the debates, perhaps forming in your own mind what climate question you would pose to candidates beyond the most simplistic.
Instead of being asked “do you believe in global warming?” or “would you stay in the Paris treaty?”—every Democratic candidate does and would—we think they should face questions like these:
Of course, you can’t count on such probing questions being asked or answered. But keeping careful, probing questions in mind may help you to sort out which candidates are truly informing the public. We, too, will parse the answers afterwards.
Following are profiles of about a dozen candidates, listed alphabetically. They were drawn from those who are leading in the polls, have detailed climate platforms, or represent diverse policies.
“What’s the point of being a progressive if we can’t make progress?”
—Michael Bennet, November 2017
Sen. Michael Bennet frequently talks about the twin problems of drought and wildfire that have plagued Colorado for years, problems that scientists say will only worsen with global warming—longer wildfire seasons, shorter ski seasons, scorching drought. In an Iowa campaign speech, he said: “I spent the whole summer meeting with farmers and ranchers in places where I’ll never get 30 percent of the vote in Colorado, who are deeply worried about being able to pass their farms or ranches along to their children or grandchildren because they have no water because of the droughts.”
Bennet, a scion of a political family with insider Democratic credentials, was initially appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy. He’s since navigated through the minefields of climate and fossil fuel policy. Notably, he repeatedly broke with most Senate Democrats to vote for the Keystone XL pipeline, an act that climate activists might not swallow easily. He bemoaned the fight over Keystone as “one of those idiotic Washington political games that bounces back and forth and doesn’t actually accomplish anything,” as he said to the Wall Street Journal.
Bennet is a climate-aware politician from an energy-rich but environment-friendly swing state who doesn’t aggressively challenge the fossil fuel industry’s drilling, pipeline and export priorities. His platform covers the basics of emissions control, plays a strong federal hand and includes protections for public lands. But his support for the Keystone XL and other fossil development and his sidestepping of issues like carbon pricing shy away from some of the climate actions that progressives hope to push forward.
—By Nina Pullano
“The willing suspension of disbelief can only be sustained for so long.”
—Joe Biden on climate denial, March 2015
Among the current candidates, only former Vice President Joseph Biden has debated a Republican opponent during a past contest for the White House—when he was Barack Obama’s running mate and took on Sarah Palin in 2008. It’s a moment that might come back to haunt him, because in a brief discussion of climate change—a chance to trounce her on the question of science denial or fossil fuel favoritism—he instead slipped into a discussion of what he called “clean coal,” which he said he had favored for 25 years. He explained it away as a reference to exporting American energy technology. But his loose language, taken in today’s context, sounds archaic.
Biden likes to say he was among the first to introduce a climate change bill in the Senate, and fact checkers generally agree. It was the Global Climate Protection Act of 1986 that was largely put into a spending bill in 1987. The Reagan administration pretty much ignored it, but the bill did call for an EPA national policy on climate change, and annual reports to Congress.
Biden represented Delaware in the Senate 36 years, and he had a lifetime environmental voting score of 83 percent from the League of Conservation Voters. In 2007, he supported higher fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles, which passed, and in 2003, modest caps on greenhouse gas emissions, which didn’t.
But his longevity is a liability, because the longer the voting record, the more contradictions. He missed a key vote in 2008 on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which was said to be the strongest global warming bill to ever make it to the Senate floor. Biden also opposed tightening fuel efficiency standards earlier in his career.
The Biden-Obama administration was strong on climate change, especially in its second term, notably achieving the landmark Paris climate agreement, asserting climate action and jobs go hand in hand. It pushed through auto fuel economy standards that deeply cut emissions. It also produced regulations on coal-fired power plants, but the rule was stymied by litigation and has been replaced with a weaker rule by the Trump administration.
Often overlooked, the Obama era stimulus package of 2009 included big investments in climate-friendly research and infrastructure. But Biden is also tethered to Obama’s “all-of-the-above” philosophy, which left ample room for the fracking boom that bolstered one fossil fuel, natural gas, over another, coal, and put the U.S. on track to become the world’s leading oil producer.
Biden has signaled he will embrace central concepts of the Green New Deal—that the world needs to get net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and that the environment and economy are connected. He was slower to do so, and for that reason he has faced criticism from young, impatient voters.
That compounds the challenge of explaining Senate votes that took place a long time ago. But he is known for his ability to communicate with blue-collar voters who abandoned Democrats for Trump, as well as older voters who have turned out in the past.
—By James Bruggers
“The opposite of justice is not injustice, it’s inaction, indifference, apathy.”
—Cory Booker, October 2018
Sen. Cory Booker traveled to Paris during the negotiations of the United Nations climate treaty in 2015, and when he came back, he took to the Senate floor to recount conversations he had there with lawmakers from Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most vulnerable of the signatory nations. As the Himalayan glaciers melt and the oceans rise, he said, “right now Bangladesh is losing 1 percent of its arable land each year, displacing millions of Bangladeshis, literally creating climate refugees.” The richest people on the planet, he was saying, should make common cause with the poorest.
Since he rose to prominence as an organizer, council member and mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Cory Booker has built a distinct environmental brand that centers on issues of racial and class equity. By 2017, as a U.S. senator and member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he was pushing to strengthen federal environmental justice programs. This year, as a presidential candidate campaigning in South Carolina, Booker formally adopted the theme as a platform plank.
Booker has consistently achieved a nearly perfect voting record on the annual green scorecards of the League of Conservation Voters. But like most other Senate Democrats, there’s no enacted law he can point to that would mark him as an especially effective climate or environmental champion.
Booker once remarked on Twitter that the very first question he was asked as a candidate in Iowa was about climate change. But he rarely mentions it on the social media platform—just twice in a recent 30-day period, once when he signed the pledge not to take contributions from fossil fuel companies, and once while visiting flooded farmland. By comparison, he tweets constantly about other hot-button issues like gun control, health care, reproductive rights and social justice. A significant voice on racial and class inequities, Booker adds nuance to a debate that others sometimes give short shrift.
—By John H. Cushman, Jr.
“If this generation doesn’t step up, we’re in trouble. This is, after all, the generation that’s gonna be on the business end of climate change for as long as we live.”
—Pete Buttigieg, April 2019
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, often talks about the surprising catastrophic flooding that hit his city twice in two years after he took office. A 1,000-year flood occurred in 2016. Then, in early 2018, a 500-year flood hit, costing millions and damaging thousands of homes. “For as long as we’re alive, and the younger you are the more you have on the line, you know our adult lives are going to be dominated by the increased severity and frequency of weather and even crazy chain reactions that happen,” Buttigieg wrote in an email.
Indiana is heavily coal reliant, its state leadership across the board is Republican, and it has passed so-called pre-emption laws that curtail local initiatives to address climate change and fossil fuel use. Yet Buttigieg set up an Office of Sustainability for South Bend. In the aftermath of the U.S. exit from the Paris climate accord, the city has jumped aboard campaigns by mayors to meet the treaty’s goals.
“We’ve continued to demonstrate our climate values by building LEED-certified fire stations, introducing free electric vehicle charging stations, empowering national service members to improve energy efficiency in low-income neighborhoods, and mentoring other Indiana cities seeking to lead on climate issues,” Buttigieg said.
His administration is also working to repair remaining damage from recent flooding and to ensure that vulnerable South Bend neighborhoods don’t get battered again. The city approved a contract to install gates on stormwater pipes that drain into the river, for the next time the river reaches flood stage.
Buttigieg, at age 37, is the youngest candidate in the Democratic primary. So when the inevitable first question comes asking if he’s too young to run for president, Buttigieg points to climate change as a big reason for his candidacy. He explains that in 2054, when he’ll be 72, the current age of Donald Trump, his generation will be suffering some of the worst effects of climate change.
His website, in a tacit nod to the links between his military record and his recognition of the climate crisis, lists the latter under the rubric of security. If he was slow to roll out specifics for addressing climate change in his burgeoning campaign, the next challenge may be to flesh out his climate positions to drive home that sense of urgency and differentiate himself from the big, more experienced pack.
—By Neela Banerjee
“We’re gonna say no to subsidizing big oil and say yes to passing a Green New Deal.”
—Julián Castro, January 2019
As U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama administration, Julián Castro spoke about the increasing frequency of natural disasters as a sign that the nation needed to build smarter and invest in resilience before the next storm hits. The success stories he saw from that position—including energy efficiency work in public housing and sustainable land-use planning after disasters—would go on to shape the policies he’s campaigning on now.
Before joining the Obama administration, Castro was mayor of San Antonio from 2009-2014, when he led the city-owned utility to pivot away from coal and toward more renewable energy. The utility adopted a goal of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, announced the closure of a coal-fired power plant, developed a plan to cut energy use, and expanded its purchasing of solar power. Castro tried to position San Antonio as a hub for clean energy by attracting new businesses and partnering with the University of Texas, San Antonio.
As Housing secretary, Castro oversaw a $1 billion grant program for innovative projects that aimed to make cities and towns more resilient to flooding and extreme weather. The program, developed with the Rockefeller Foundation after Hurricane Sandy, helped pay for projects in eight states and five cities, including coastal restoration in Louisiana and a plan to protect parts of Manhattan from rising seas. He also promoted a program that boosted energy efficiency in multi-family housing as a way to cut costs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But it wasn’t all green for Castro. His tenure as mayor coincided with a fracking boom in the nearby Eagle Ford shale, and Castro welcomed the jobs and investment that came with oil and gas development. In 2012, he told the San Antonio Express-News that the drilling boom brought an “unprecedented opportunity” and that high schools and colleges had to do more to train students for oil field work.
In a 2015 interview, Castro said that while he had concerns about the safety of fracking, he supported the practice as long as it is well regulated. “I believe that there is a utility to it and that it has a strong economic value, that natural gas is an important component of our energy future and at the same time keeping an open mind as research continues to come in,” he said.
Castro has spoken often about the urgency of the threat posed by climate change, and in his campaign announcement, he called it “the biggest threat to our prosperity in this 21st Century.” But while he has established credentials working to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy in San Antonio and as part of the Obama administration, climate change does not appear to be one of Castro’s signature issues. Beyond the specifics in his housing plan, his campaign has not announced a detailed climate policy.
—By Nicholas Kusnetz
“When John F. Kennedy said, ‘I want to put a man on the moon in 10 years,’ he didn’t know if he could do it. But he knew it was an organizing principle. … Why not do the same here? Why not say let’s get to net zero carbon emissions in 10 years not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard?”
—Kirsten Gillibrand, April 2019
As a senator from upstate New York, Kirsten Gillibrand has seen two climate hot-button issues land in her backyard: fracking and the impacts of extreme weather. She is continuing to seek funding for recovery from Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Irene and has cited the impacts from those storms—as well as the recent flooding in the Midwest—as evidence that leaders need to take on climate change urgently.
On fracking, her position has evolved. Early in her Senate career, Gillibrand saw fracking as bringing an “economic opportunity” to the state, though she regularly underscored the need for it to be done in a way that was safe for the environment, according to E&E. More recently, she has supported plans that would likely keep any remaining oil in the ground—making fracking a moot point.
Gillibrand boasts a 95 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation voters, having voted on the side of environmentalists 100 percent of the time since 2014. Since becoming a senator in 2009, Gillibrand has been a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, where she has co-sponsored multiple pieces of legislation, including bills calling for a carbon tax and for the Green New Deal.
Unlike most of her peers in the 2020 race, Gillibrand hasn’t put out a lengthy climate policy plan—this really isn’t her issue. But she does have a record in the Senate that, by and large, brands her as a climate progressive. Her early support of fracking may come back to bite her, though.
—By Sabrina Shankman
“As California breaks one wildfire record after another, we need to speak the truth—in order to mitigate these fires, we must combat the effects of climate change.”
—Kamala Harris, August 2018
Kamala Harris is just the latest example of a presidential candidate using a newly won Senate seat as a launching pad, but her political profile was built in California, a state where environmental and climate policy rank high on the agenda.
As San Francisco’s district attorney she created an environmental justice unit and as California attorney general she confronted the fossil fuel industry, opposing a Chevron refinery expansion in Richmond. She frequently joined other blue-state AG’s to challenge Trump regulatory rollbacks. One of 17 to join AGs United for Clean Power in 2016, she signaled support of an investigation of ExxonMobil but did not take on the company as did Massachusetts and New York, which pursued active legal challenges that continue to this day.
In the Senate minority, Harris has opposed Trump and the Republicans on environmental issues, especially those that involve California, like rollbacks of regulations involving offshore drilling or automotive fuel efficiency standards.
She joined with five other senators to file a brief in court on behalf of San Francisco and Oakland in their climate damages lawsuit against fossil fuel companies, citing the millions of dollars the industry has spent to sow climate change doubt and influence lawmakers.
Harris, like other senators running for president, has embraced the Green New Deal. “Climate change is an existential threat, and confronting it requires bold action,” she said, adding: “Political stunts won’t get us anywhere.”
There’s no question that Harris understands the importance of climate change, its causes, and the need for rapid solutions. But she has not made it a hallmark of her campaign and has shied away from the particulars. She doesn’t have the kind of comprehensive, detailed plan that many other candidates have offered, and in a few instances, such as whether to vigorously pursue an investigation of Exxon’s activities, she has backed off.
“Combatting this crisis first requires the Republican majority to stop denying science and finally admit that climate change is real and humans are the dominant cause,” her statement on the Green New Deal said. If that’s an attempt to focus attention on the problem of Donald Trump and GOP denial, it may not propel her far in a turbulent climate debate among Democrats.
—By David Hasemyer
“For some reason, our party has been reluctant to express directly its opposition to democratic socialism. In fact, the Democratic field has not only failed to oppose Sen. Sanders’ agenda, but they’ve actually pushed to embrace it.”
—John Hickenlooper, June 2019
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who calls himself “the only scientist now seeking the presidency,” got a master’s degree in geology at Wesleyan University in 1980. He then went to Colorado to work as an exploration geologist for Buckhorn Petroleum, which operated oil leases until a price collapse that left him unemployed. On the rebound, he opened a brewpub, eventually selling his stake and getting into politics as mayor of Denver, 2003-2011, and governor of Colorado, 2011-2019. Both previous private sector jobs mark him as an unconventional Democratic presidential contender.
In 2014, when Hickenlooper was governor, Colorado put into force the strongest measures adopted by any state to control methane emissions from drilling operations. He embraced them: “The new rules approved by Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission, after taking input from varied and often conflicting interests, will ensure Colorado has the cleanest and safest oil and gas industry in the country and help preserve jobs,” he said at the time. Now, as a presidential candidate, he promises that he “will use the methane regulations he enacted as governor as the model for a nation-wide program to limit these potent greenhouse gases.”
Hickenlooper has made a point of dismissing the Green New Deal, which he considers impractical and divisive. “These plans, while well-intentioned, could mean huge costs for American taxpayers, and might trigger a backlash that dooms the fight against climate change,” he declared in a campaign document, describing the Green New Deal.
But his plans are full of mainstream liberal ideas for addressing climate change:
Hickenlooper’s disdain for untrammelled government spending and for what he sees as a drift toward socialism in the party’s ranks, stake out some of the most conservative territory in the field. He has gained little traction so far. But his climate proposals are not retrograde; like the rest of the field, he’s been drawn toward firm climate action in a year when the issue seems to hold special sway.
—By John H. Cushman, Jr.
“I am the only candidate saying, unequivocally, that I will make defeating climate change the number one priority of my administration.”
—Jay Inslee, June 2019
Since taking office in 2013, Gov. Jay Inslee has seen seven of the 10 largest wildfires on record in Washington, a state half covered with woodland. “Climate change is ravaging our forest,” Inslee said at the site of a fire that burned for three months in the Wenatchee National Forest in 2017. “The combination of beetle kill, drought and higher temperatures have made our fires, bombs, waiting to go off.”
When Inslee signed a law in May committing the nation’s 10th largest state economy to 100 percent clean energy by 2045, it was a testament to both his perseverance on climate and the power of the forces that lined up against him. For six years, Inslee pushed a vision of Washington as part of a West Coast vanguard in the fight to curb carbon emissions, but first he had to battle a Republican legislature, the state’s big oil refining industry, and even division among environmental activists. A slew of proposals either died in the state capitol or at the ballot box before Inslee could claim victory for what he called “the strongest clean energy policy in the nation.” He had to drop his goals for carbon pricing and a low-carbon fuel standard.
While embracing his role as the first presidential candidate to center a campaign around climate change, Inslee seems determined to show he’s not a single-issue candidate. When his full platform is unveiled, it will encompass up to seven separate detailed policy papers. In approaching the clean energy transition as an economic issue, a labor issue, a foreign policy issue, and more, Inslee tries to avoid the label of one-trick pony while pestering the Democratic National Committee to hold a debate on climate change alone.
—By Marianne Lavelle
“The people are on our side when it comes to climate change. Why? Because like you and I, they believe in science.”
—Amy Klobuchar, February 2019
Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks of Fran, a woman she met in Pacific Junction, Iowa, along the Nebraska border during recent flooding. “Hanging there on her neck was this pair of binoculars. She had me look through them and she says, ‘This is my house, I bought it with my husband, our 4-year-old twins, we were going to retire in this house, and now it’s halfway underwater.’” It’s a personal connection, but can that elevate the Minnesota senator among the other candidates?
Months into her first Senate term in 2007, Klobuchar introduced a bill to start a carbon-tracking program as a step toward a cap-and-trade system to address climate change. Another bill of hers called for an expansion of renewable energy tax credits, provisions of which later became law as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
Klobuchar describes herself as a progressive who can still win moderate voters in swing states such as Iowa and Wisconsin. On climate issues, however, her tone and positions mean that the majority of the field is to her left. She is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal resolution but says it shouldn’t be taken literally, and she shies away from stances that could be branded as extreme, such as banning fracking. But she can argue that her actions on climate and the environment are progressive, as shown by her 96 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters and her early support for a cap-and-trade program.
—By Dan Gearino
“Literally. Not to be melodramatic, but literally, the future of the world depends on us right now, here, where we are. Let’s find a way to do this.”
—Beto O’Rourke, March 2019
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke frequently cites the devastation from 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, which walloped his home state of Texas with record amounts of rain and caused $125 billion in damage, as an example of what will befall American cities if emissions aren’t brought under control. “We many not be able to live in some of the cities we call home today,” he told a crowd on a campaign stop. That could further fuel migration, already affecting places like El Paso, at the Mexican border—a “crisis of a different magnitude altogether.”
With just three terms in the U.S. House, which was dominated by the GOP at the time, O’Rourke hasn’t much of a climate record. His campaign cites green credentials earned in El Paso city government, including pollution and land use issues like copper smelting pollution and protecting grasslands from drilling.
As he rose to fame in an unsuccessful challenge to Sen. Ted Cruz last year, O’Rourke presented a sharp contrast on climate change—as deep as any Trump will present to the eventual Democratic nominee. In their final debate, Cruz denied the human role in climate change and mused that “the climate has been changing from the dawn of time.” O’Rourke retorted: “Three hundred years after the Enlightenment, we should be able to listen to the scientists.”
O’Rourke was the first candidate out of the gates with a detailed climate-specific platform, releasing a $5 trillion plan in late April that calls for the U.S. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. That’s as big a scale as practically any candidate’s with the possible exception of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
“Some will criticize the Green New Deal for being too bold or being unmanageable,” O’Rourke told a crowd in Keokuk, Iowa, in March. “I tell you what, I haven’t seen anything better that addresses this singular crisis that we face, a crisis that could at its worst lead to extinction.”
After declaring his candidacy, O’Rourke attempted to distinguish himself as a leader on climate. But, being from a conservative, fossil-fuel dependent state—albeit one that has embraced wind energy—O’Rourke has a complicated relationship with the oil industry. Sometimes his rationale for past votes, like opening up export markets for oil and gas, echo those of the industry. His campaign says his positions are changing as the climate threat becomes more clearly understood.
Like other candidates, O’Rourke most forcefully cites the IPCC’s warning that the world has a critical 12-year window in which to most effectively act on climate change. That’s hard to reconcile with an enduring pact with fossil fuels.
—By Georgina Gustin
“There is no ‘middle ground’ when it comes to climate policy.”
—Bernie Sanders, May 2019
Tropical Storm Irene, which in 2011 caused the deaths of six people in Vermont, forced thousands from their homes, and washed away hundreds of bridges and miles of roads, was a wake-up call for a state where Sen. Bernie Sanders is a thoroughly established favorite son. “No one thought a northern state like Vermont would be hit by such a strong tropical storm,” Sanders said.
Sanders often says he introduced “the most comprehensive climate change legislation in the history of the United States Senate.” It was a carbon tax-and-dividend bill and accompanying clean energy bill co-sponsored with then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in 2013. The bills were dead on arrival, but they marked an important shift in the Democratic drive for climate action—a pivot away from the cap-and-trade approach that had foundered, and toward carbon taxation.
Sanders’ biggest legislative climate accomplishment was a national energy efficiency grant program he introduced his first year in the Senate. It passed in 2007. He successfully pushed for $3.2 billion for the program to be included in the Obama administration’s 2009 economic recovery package. The grants were the largest investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy at the community level in U.S. history.
Sanders, with his open defense of democratic socialism, defines the leftist boundary of presidential politics while also staking out a populist territory that resonated well in 2016. His explicit aim is to “keep oil, gas, and coal in the ground.” Although his signature campaign proposals (Medicare-for-All, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour) aren’t about climate, the Green New Deal allows Sanders to use climate action as a vehicle for his economic and social justice aims. His proposal for a federal jobs guarantee would be tied to the need for workers to build infrastructure to aid in a clean energy transition as well as to help communities with restoration and resilience. Whether or not he emerges as the nominee, his base of voters, and his ideas, will deeply influence the 2020 campaign.
—By Marianne Lavelle
“Before the 2008 crash, investors and the government failed to address growing risks in our financial system. We’re making the same mistake with climate change today—we know it’s coming, but we’re not doing enough to stop it.”
—Elizabeth Warren, September 2018
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who represents Massachusetts, a state with strong ties to Puerto Rico, paid attention to Hurricane Maria when it spread death and lasting destruction across Puerto Rico in 2017. Warren was already fighting for debt relief for the territory before the storm. Maria brought the island’s plight into a climate focus. “There are people who have no food, there are people who have no water, there are people who have no medicine, there are people who need our help,” she said. “This is the responsibility of our government, the government that is supposed to work for us.”
Warren came to political prominence in her detailed response to the financial crisis of 2008, and that has carried over into her increasingly developed position on climate change. Look at the Climate Risk Disclosure Act that she introduced in September that would require companies to disclose the risk climate change poses to their financial assets. The bill would require companies to release information on their greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel holdings, and how they would be impacted by both climate policies and the effects of climate change. The bill languished, but the issue has been gaining attention from fossil fuel company shareholders in recent years and appears to be gaining traction among other candidates.
Warren built her career in the Senate railing against Wall Street and championing consumer protection and economic equality. But her priorities are evolving as environmental and economic impacts of climate change increasingly merge.
On the campaign trail, Warren is increasingly taking a leadership role on climate issues, as when she became one of the first presidential candidates to sign the No Fossil Fuel pledge. When she released a detailed policy proposal in April to ban new oil and gas leases on federal lands, other candidates quickly followed suit. And when Joe Biden put out a big climate pledge, Warren was able to quickly trump him with an even bigger commitment of her own.
—By Phil McKenna
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