Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that he would move further left on the issue of climate change, after already vowing to “eliminate” fossil fuels, including coal and fracking.
Biden recently said that he views future coronavirus relief bills as opportunities to enact a “Green New Deal,” the policy introduced last year by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to move the U.S. to 100% renewable energy by 2030, though he did not specifically endorse that legislation or that goal.
But Ocasio-Cortez, who has not yet endorsed Biden, has said that his climate policy is still insufficient. “I don’t think that the vice president has a climate change policy that is sufficient right now,” she told Politico last week, “and I’d like to see us really work on that.”
Biden’s current climate change plan calls for “a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050.” In the second Democrat debate in Detroit, he committed to “eliminate[ing]” the coal and fracking industries.
That stance is not ambitious enough for Ocasio-Cortez and the left, whom Biden is trying to appease.
The Hill reported Monday:
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Monday that he would expand his environmental platform amid calls from some environmental groups aligned with former primary challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“I outlined a bold plan to lead a clean energy revolution and fight for environmental justice. But the best policy work is continuous, creative, and keeps reaching for greater ambition and impact. In the months ahead, expanding this plan will be one of my key objectives,” Biden said in a statement while accepting an endorsement from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund.
“I have asked my campaign to commence a process to meaningfully engage with more voices from the climate movement — including environmental justice leaders and worker organizations, and collaborate on additional policies in areas ranging from environmental justice to new, concrete goals we can achieve within a decade, to more investments in a clean energy economy,” he added.
In October 2008, Biden promised voters in West Virginia that he and then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) would protect “clean coal.”
“Barack and I believe clean coal is part of our energy future,” he said.
(At the time, Biden was walking back comments he made the month before, saying that “We’re not supporting clean coal,” and that new coal plants should be built in China instead of the U.S.)
Ocasio-Cortez deleted a tweet Monday that appeared to celebrate negative oil prices: “You absolutely love to see it,” she said. The negative prices — the first in history — threaten America’s energy industry.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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