Environmental points haven’t been a serious a part of Harris’s portfolio as vice chairman, however advocates see her as a determine who each has bona fides on the difficulty and is positioned to generate enthusiasm amongst youthful and extra progressive voters who have been ambivalent about President Biden’s reelection bid.
“I believe she deserves extra credit score than she typically will get on this space,” stated Lena Moffitt, government director at Evergreen Motion. “She’s made it a precedence of the workplaces she’s overseen going again twenty years in a approach that’s actually spectacular.”
Harris’s tenure as California Lawyer Basic included a 2016 investigation into allegations that ExxonMobil knowingly hid the impacts of fossil fuels on local weather change, though no case was in the end filed.
The identical 12 months, her workplace reached a $14 million settlement with BP subsidies over allegations the businesses had not correctly secured leaky underground gasoline tanks at California stations, and introduced prison indictments in opposition to a Houston pipeline operator over a 2015 rupture in Santa Barbara County.
As a senator and presidential candidate, Harris staked out positions to Biden’s left on local weather and vitality points. In contrast to Biden, she supported a fracking ban and the formidable suite of local weather actions launched by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) often called the Inexperienced New Deal. An official together with her marketing campaign now tells The Hill she is not going to ban fracking if she’s elected president.
The identical positions which might be inspiring enthusiasm amongst environmental advocates might additionally gas assaults from conservatives, nevertheless.
Learn extra in a full report at TheHill.com.