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Should the U.S. stop selling fossil fuels on the global market just as it nears toppling Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil exporter? A handful of 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls say yes.
The roughly 20-strong field looking to beat President Donald Trump next year mostly aligns in its plans to rejoin a Paris Climate Agreement that includes U.S. allies, and most candidates want to end new fossil-fuel leasing on public lands. Widening the lens, however, their environmental proposals reveal key differences, and not just when it comes to U.S. oil, where to extract it and how to sell it.
Ten candidates, many of whom have issued or updated their climate-change proposals in recent weeks and days, will participate in one-on-one interviews on CNN Wednesday evening across seven hours of programming. It’s the first time in a presidential campaign that the question of what to do about the “climate crisis,” as CNN calls it, has earned its own single-issue forum on prime-time television. A CNN poll conducted in April showed that 96% of voters who identify as Democrats favored taking aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change.
“One area where candidates overwhelmingly agree is ending new leases for fossil-fuel development on federal lands. Investors should take note because this is something that a president can do unilaterally, without congressional approval,” says James Lucier, who leads the energy, environmental and tax practices at Capital Alpha.
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Federal lands offshore and onshore currently produce 13% of U.S. natural gas and 24% of U.S. oil CL.1, +0.10% . U.S. crude oil exports will nearly double to 9 million barrels a day by 2024, the International Energy Agency forecasts. That’s enough to surpass Russian shipments and threatens to overtake Saudi exports. But the U.S. should be investing in alternative energy sources, not pouring oil onto the global market, say early poll leaders Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, along with Sen. Cory Booker and select others.
Capital Alpha Note: This graphic was created before candidates John Hickenlooper and Jay Inslee dropped out of the presidential race and before Andrew Yang detailed his proposals.
About half of the field is backing a “Green New Deal” that has already been factoring into the election conversation. Some are adding their own features to the pact rolled out by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of Congress earlier this year. Sanders, Harris, Warren, Booker and Sen. Amy Klobuchar all signed off on the Green New Deal legislation.
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Following the lead of major states such as California and New York, the candidates with the more advanced plans are moving to endorse features of the Green New Deal, such as a 100%-clean-electricity goal (10 candidates of the 19 tracked by Lucier and Capital Alpha) and a net-zero emissions target by 2050 (nine candidates). Many other candidates have been vocal supporters of the deal, which is at least as much a job-creation bill as climate-protection bill.
Surprisingly, few candidates (only four) lead with an explicit carbon price — a cost applied to carbon pollution to encourage polluters to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit into the atmosphere. Most candidates are choosing emissions targets instead as a means of stopping ozone depletion. Those that favor a carbon price do generally have less developed policies than those who follow a Green New Deal approach, analysts say. Still, a majority of candidates are at least open to a carbon price, notes Lucier. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, out with his $5 trillion proposal in late August, plays up the use of nuclear energy more than his competition.
More candidates have put a price tag on their plans in recent weeks but how exactly they’ll fund ambitious environmental fixes will have to be hammered out as the group narrows.
The Democratic National Committee, by a vote of 222-137, in August ruled against allowing a climate-only debate that former climate-focused 2020 candidate Gov. Jay Inslee and activists had pushed for. Inslee has since announced his withdrawal from the presidential race to run again for Washington governor.
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Using the candidates’ own proposals and analysis from Capital Alpha, here’s a snapshot of climate-policy positions among the higher-polling names or those who have made climate change a particular priority. Not all candidates are included, nor are the highlights exhaustive of each candidate’s environmental proposals to date.
Biden: The Obama administration’s vice president wants 100% clean energy and net-zero emissions by 2050. He’ll work with other major international carbon-emitting nations to create enforceable pacts, he says. He’ll advance a $1.7 trillion federal investment and $5 trillion total public-private spending on climate initiatives.
Sanders: The long-serving Vermont senator, who considers himself a Democratic Socialist, will push for the end of exports of coal, natural gas and crude oil, while phasing out nuclear energy. He recently detailed a $16 trillion climate plan that builds on the Green New Deal.
Warren: The Massachusetts senator will spend $2 trillion over 10 years in green research, manufacturing and exporting; $1.5 trillion of federal energy product procurement over 10 years; and $100 billion in foreign aid for clean-energy deployment. She’ll ban new fossil-fuel leases offshore and on public lands and will regulate companies to disclose climate risks. Warren has said corruption and lobbying are big obstacles to U.S. action on climate change.
Harris: The California senator updated what had been a relatively thin climate policy proposal ahead of the CNN forum. She is calling for $10 trillion in spending over a decade to combat human-driven global warming and leveling a new tax or fee on companies that emit greenhouse pollution. She had included a climate cooperation pledge as part of foreign policy that she says will restore U.S. footing with allies. As senator, she has co-introduced legislation to block efforts to roll back fuel-emissions standards by the Trump administration.
Read: Trump is reportedly working to prevent more automakers from California emissions rollback defection
Booker: The Newark mayor-turned-New Jersey senator introduced a $3 trillion plan the day after Labor Day that promises spending on clean energy and would require “fossil fuel producers” to pay a carbon fee on coal, natural gas and oil production and end tax subsidies to those industries. He does not go into greater detail about how such a plan would be paid for. “Without immediate action, we risk an incredible human toll from disasters, health impacts, rising national security threats, and trillions of dollars in economic losses,” he said in a release as deadly Hurricane Dorian churned in the Caribbean and charted a route headed for parts of the Southeast U.S. coast.
Klobuchar: The Minnesota senator was weeks or months behind some of her competition in laying out a climate plan, but on Sept. 1 she advanced her ideas for “aggressive executive action” if elected to the White House. Klobuchar would ensure the U.S. participates in the Paris climate agreement on day one of her presidency, restore the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, bring back the fuel-economy standards and introduce legislation that would, she says, put the U.S. on a path to 100% net zero emissions by 2050, among other initiatives.
Yang: In his $5 trillion “Lower Emissions, Higher Ground” plan released Aug. 26, Yang says he would allow the U.S. to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. His plan includes: a transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy and upgrading infrastructure and farming practices; moving populations to higher ground; researching the removal of carbon from the atmosphere, including using “space mirrors” to deflect sunlight. Compared to climate-change plans from most other candidates, Yang’s would focus on keeping nuclear energy. He didn’t say exactly how he’d pay for the $5 trillion proposal, although a carbon tax is included.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg: Mayor Pete’s $1.1 trillion plan calls for net-zero emissions by 2050 and creating 3 million clean-energy jobs in the next decade, with a focus on replacing lost rural jobs. His spending on the issue is shy of the between $2 trillion and $16 trillion in climate spending proposed by field front-runners Biden, Warren and Sanders. The mayor detailed the creation of a $250 billion fund matched with $250 billion in private investment with American companies to lead development of green technologies and a $50 billion seed fund for riskier and experimental ideas. Buttigieg had said he’ll explore carbon capture and he’ll push for collaboration with other countries to create climate goals more ambitious than the Paris agreement.
Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke: The oil-country politician would provide no new fossil-fuel leases and would change the royalties that oil and gas companies pay taxpayers for pumping from public lands to reflect the greater demands of climate change. He too looks to surpass the Paris agreement, in 2030 and after.
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro: His “People and Planet First Plan” aims to direct $10 trillion in federal, state, local and private investments toward the issue over the next 10 years. A campaign spokesman said the plan would be paid for with a new carbon pollution fee, a restart of the Superfund tax and making “polluters pay,” CNN said. Previous proposed taxes — the inheritance tax and wealth inequality tax — would help pay for the plan, as well as the eliminating the Trump tax cuts. Castro’s plan also calls out the racial impacts of climate change, citing a series of studies that found those most directly impacted by issues like toxic waste, asthma and pollution are more likely to be people of color and more vulnerable communities.
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