Harris and Trump offer starkly different visions on climate change and energy

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Earth sizzled through a summer with four of the hottest days ever measured, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have starkly different visions on how to address a changing climate while ensuring a reliable energy supply. But neither has provided many details on how they would get there.

During her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris briefly mentioned climate change as she outlined “fundamental freedoms” at stake in the election, including “the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”

As vice president, Harris cast the tiebreaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law that was approved with only Democratic support. As a senator from California, she was an early sponsor of the Green New Deal, a sweeping series of proposals meant to swiftly move the United States to fully green energy that is championed by the party’s most progressive wing.

Trump, meanwhile, led chants of “drill, baby, drill” and pledged to dismantle the Biden administration’s “green new scam” in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He has vowed to boost production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal and repeal key parts of the 2022 climate law.

“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far,” Trump said at the convention. “We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy.”

‘Climate champion’ or unfair regulations?

Environmental groups, which largely back Harris, call her a “proven climate champion” who will take on Big Oil and build on Biden’s climate legacy, including policies that boost electric vehicles and limit planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants.

“We won’t go back to a climate denier in the Oval Office,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action.

Republicans counter that Biden and Harris have spent four years adopting “punishing regulations” that target American energy while lavishing generous tax credits for electric vehicles and other green priorities that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

“This onslaught of overreaching and outrageous climate rules will shut down power plants and increase energy costs for families across the country,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. “Republicans will work to stop them and fight for solutions that protect our air and water and allow our economy to grow.”

Democrats have a clear edge on the issue. More than half of U.S. adults say they trust Harris “a lot” or “some” when it comes to addressing climate change, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in July. About 7 in 10 say they have “not much” trust in Trump or “none at all” when it comes to climate. Fewer than half say they lack trust in Harris.

A look at where the two candidates stand on key climate and energy issues:

Fracking and offshore drilling

Harris said during her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign that she opposed offshore drilling for oil and hydraulic fracturing, an oil and gas extraction process better known as fracking.

But her campaign has clarified that she no longer supports a ban on fracking, a common drilling practice crucial to the economy in Pennsylvania, a key swing state and the nation’s second-largest producer of natural gas.

“As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking,” Harris told CNN on Thursday in her first major television interview as the nominee. “We can grow … a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”

Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington research firm, said Harris’ evolving views show she is “trying to balance climate voters and industry supporters,″ even as her campaign takes ”an adversarial stance″ with the oil and gas industry overall.

Harris and Democrats have cited new rules — authorized by the climate law — to increase royalties that oil and gas companies pay to drill or mine on public lands. She also has supported efforts to clean up old drilling sites and cap abandoned wells that often spew methane and other pollutants.

Trump, who pushed to roll back scores of environmental laws as president, says his goal is for the U.S. to have the cheapest energy and electricity in the world. He’d increase oil drilling on public lands, offer tax breaks to oil, gas and coal producers and speed approval of natural gas pipelines.

Electric vehicles

Trump has frequently criticized tough new vehicle emissions rules imposed by Biden, incorrectly labeling them an electric vehicle “mandate.″ Environmental Protection Agency rules issued this spring target tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks and encourage but do not require sales of new EVs to meet the new standards.

Trump has said EV manufacturing will destroy jobs in the auto industry. In recent months, however, he has softened his rhetoric, saying he’s for “a very small slice” of cars being electric.

The change comes after Tesla CEO Elon Musk “endorsed me very strongly,” Trump said at an August rally in Atlanta. Even so, industry officials expect Trump to roll back Biden’s EV push and attempt to repeal tax incentives that Trump claims benefit China.

Harris has not announced an EV plan but has strongly supported EVs as vice president. At a 2022 event in Seattle, she celebrated roughly $1 billion in federal grants to purchase about 2,500 “clean” school buses. As many as 25 million children ride the familiar yellow buses each school day, and they will have a healthier future with a cleaner fleet, Harris said.

The grants and other federal climate programs not only are aimed at “saving our children, but for them, saving our planet,″ she said.

Climate law, jobs

Harris has focused on implementing the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021, as well as climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided nearly $375 billion in financial incentives for electric cars and clean energy projects.

Under Biden and Harris, U.S. manufacturers created more than 250,000 energy jobs last year, the Energy Department said, with clean energy accounting for more than half of those jobs. “America is more energy secure than ever before with the highest domestic energy production on record,” the Harris campaign said.

Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, deride climate spending as a “money grab” for environmental groups and say it will ship Americans’ jobs to China and other countries while increasing energy prices at home.

“Kamala Harris cares more about climate change than about inflation,” Vance wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

Goodbye Paris?

Trump, who has cast climate change as a “hoax,” withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. He has pledged to do so again, calling the global plan to reduce carbon emissions unenforceable and a gift to China and other big polluters. Trump promises to end wind subsidies included in the climate law and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden administration to increase the energy efficiency of lightbulbs, stoves, dishwashers and shower heads.

Harris has called the Paris Agreement crucial to address climate change and protect “our children’s future.″

The U.S. returned to the pact soon after Biden took office in 2021.

LNG pause

After approving numerous projects to export liquefied natural gas, or LNG, the Biden administration in January paused consideration of new natural gas export terminals. The delay allows officials to review the economic and climate impacts of natural gas, a fossil fuel that emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The decision aligned the Democratic president with environmentalists who fear the recent increase in LNG exports is locking in potentially catastrophic planet-warming emissions even as Biden has pledged to cut climate pollution in half by 2030.

Trump has said he would approve terminals “on my very first day back” in office.

Harris has not outlined plans for LNG exports, but analysts expect her to impose tough climate standards on export projects as part of her larger stance against large oil and gas companies.