Groups backing Harris were angered by Biden supporting the Willow project and Mountain Valley Pipeline, continuing fossil fuel lease sales, and skipping last year’s U.N. summit.
Vice President Kamala Harris delivering remarks as President Joe Biden looks on, October 2022. (White House/ Adam Schultz)
By Jessica Corbett
Common Dreams
Progressive climate and environmental advocacy groups on Wednesday stressed the threat posed by the Republican presidential ticket and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the November election.
One coalition of six groups — 350 Action, Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, Clean Water Action, Climate Hawks Vote, Food and Water Action, and Friends of the Earth Action — cited Harris’ record as vice president and a U.S. senator from California.
Despite his months as the presumptive Democratic nominee, none of the organizations had endorsed President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race and backed Harris earlier this month.
“Vice President Harris is a visible leader in the Biden-Harris administration’s successful work to address environmental injustice, tackle the climate crisis, hold polluters accountable, reduce water pollution, and ensure clean drinking water for all,” said Clean Water Action president and CEO Jeff Carter, emphasizing that her actions “have made a real difference in people’s lives.”
Jeff Ordower of 350 Action highlighted that in addition to being “part of the administration that invested in renewable energy through the historic Inflation Reduction Act,” Harris “has a history of taking on Big Oil and advocating for environmental justice.”
“As a global climate movement, we know Harris represents not just the ability to make progress in the U.S., but globally as well,” he added. “For those… who care about democracy, climate, and decreased corporate capture of our government, Kamala Harris is our only choice.”
“For those… who care about democracy, climate, and decreased corporate capture of our government, Kamala Harris is our only choice.”
Kierán Suckling, president of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, similarly urged “everyone who cares about our planet, environmental justice, women’s rights, civil rights, and our democracy to get out and vote for Kamala Harris to be our next president.”
Suckling also took aim at former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, declaring that “Harris will lead us toward a brighter future for our children and grandchildren, and put the nightmare of Trump behind us.”
Trump — who earlier this month announced Big Oil-backed Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate — has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” and roll back the Biden-Harris administration climate policies if fossil fuel executives pour money into his campaign.
Although the U.S. is among five wealthy countries that have led a global surge in oil and gas development this year, Harris’ campaign has warned that “oil barons are salivating” over Trump’s potential return to the White House.
A March study found that Trump’s plans for a second term would lead to 4 billion more tons of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere by 2030 when compared with the policies of Biden — who has passed the torch to Harris, whose online nomination process is set to start on Thursday.
Proud to join other climate & clean energy leaders as a signatory (https://t.co/DqvYJm0p4K) of this letter supporting VP @KamalaHarris for President!https://t.co/Wxxkb1xk59
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) July 30, 2024
“Kamala Harris’ record provides a stark contrast with Donald Trump and the far-right, pro-polluter Project 2025,” said Wenonah Hauter, founder and executive director of Food and Water Action. “Of course, much more needs to be done, and Harris’ positions do not yet go far enough to tackle the existential threats to our food, water, and climate.”
“But with a President Harris, we will have a chance to build the political power to move the bold climate initiatives we need,” Hauter emphasized. “Four more years of Trump and Project 2025 will further accelerate an already escalating climate crisis and eviscerate important protections for our food and water.”
The six groups that backed Harris but not Biden were among the campaigners and scientists angered by the president supporting the Willow project and Mountain Valley Pipeline, continuing fossil fuel lease sales, skipping last year’s United Nations summit, and declining to declare a national climate emergency.
As HEATED, which scooped the endorsement news, reported late Tuesday:
“Harris has already received endorsements from the so-called ‘Big Green’ groups — the political arms of the League of Conservation Voters, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and Clean Energy for America. But those weren’t much of a surprise, as each group had already backed Biden’s reelection bid, and are traditionally loyal to Democratic Party politicians.
The groups endorsing Harris on Wednesday, however, had so far held off on throwing their support behind Biden while he was running for reelection — in part because of the sitting president’s mixed record on climate policy.
“It was very much a debate” on whether to endorse Biden, said one of the group’s staffers, who spoke on background because the Harris announcement is not yet public. But with Harris, the calculus has changed.
“Because of her work in California and when she was a senator—a lot of us worked with her on creating the Environmental Justice for All Act—it gives us hope,” the staffer said. “She’s just a different person [than Biden], and has a stronger track record.”
“Friends of the Earth Action is excited to endorse Kamala Harris for president of the United States,” the group’s president, Erich Pica said Wednesday. “We are not going back to an era dominated by fossil fuel interests, corporate greed, and disenfranchisement. Instead, we’re looking forward to building a healthy and just future with Vice President Harris.”
For Climate Hawks Vote, this is the organization’s first presidential endorsement since its founding over a decade ago.
“We’re breaking our usual rule of not endorsing in presidential elections, given our strong history with Kamala Harris (we endorsed her in her 2016 Senate race), her track record in taking on Big Oil and holding polluters accountable, and the extraordinary moment of this election,” explained RL Miller, the group’s president. “We are climate hawks who vote, and we’ll be flocking together for Kamala Harris.”
The Green New Deal Network — which also never endorsed Biden —separately threw its support behind Harris on Wednesday.
“What the Green New Deal really is, is understanding that everything’s connected,” the network’s national director, Kaniela Ing, told Inside Climate News.
“Making sure our tax dollars aren’t just going to kill children abroad, but to build schools and hospitals here at home… Local control of resources, self-determination of our communities. That’s the vision Kamala Harris, given her background—being bused to schools, really being a product of a lot of our social programs—really understands.”
One group that has not yet endorsed Harris but has certainly been attentive to both major party tickets is the youth-led Sunrise Movement. The organization warned earlier this month that the Republicans would cause “catastrophic and irreversible damage” to the climate if elected, and some members were arrested for a Monday protest Vance’s Senate office on Capitol Hill.
That same day, Sunrise rallied outside of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., to urge Harris “to put forward a comprehensive plan on the economy and climate.”
Sunrise is also part of a youth-led coalition — which includes Gen-Z for Change, March for Our Lives, and United We Dream Action — that wrote to Harris last week, “This is your chance to energize young people and our communities to vote, mount one of the greatest political comebacks in decades, and deliver a resounding defeat to the far-right agenda of Trump and Vance.”
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Has Kamala Harris said where she stands on these issues? I don’t think so.
Political endorsements just result in organizations compromising themselves, an activity that should be left to politicians. The ones that have retained respect the longest never do it.
Disappointment springs eternal.
President Nixon did quite a lot for the environment. This included the setting up of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.
But it is important to understand his motivation: He does not seem to have been greatly concerned by the issue personally. However, his pollsters warned him that this was an issue which resonated with considerable numbers of voters.
And, just as crucially, he was concerned that the issue could be used against him in the 1972 presidential election.
Also for 1972, Nixon was very keen to be seen as the ‘peace’ candidate.
Whether Harris or Trump, the US capitalist ruling class will continue its plunder of the Earth’s resources and the destruction of the human race, all for the pursuit of profit and power. And there’ll always be those that wish to be close to that profit and power that will say or do anything to convince others to go along with it.
The 1st step in breaking the ruling class hold on people, is getting them to see the ruling class as they really are. That means getting people to see that Blue No Matter Who leads to the same shit as MAGA Red. Only once the majority of people see that, will they begin to realize that capitalism isn’t a democracy, and they’ve been handing over their votes to the ruling class.
And only a mass social political movement to replace capitalism with a system that 1) recognizes the finite state of the planet and dedicates efforts to meet peoples’ critical needs (food, clothing, shelter, health, education, peace/end to war, end to censorship, stop climate change/heal the planet) and 2) justice/restitution for the victims of capitalism – can save us all now. And time is running out.
Adding my voice to those who see through the baloney being peddled by the so called ‘greenies’ endorsement of Kamala. The original Green New Deal came from the Green Party and includes major cuts in the military budget. The Dem version doesn’t touch it. As per usual, it’s all smoke and mirrors designed to obfuscate and confuse. As others have said, Kamala has the same owners as Biden. That is who she will listen to. To believe otherwise is delusional.
My thoughts exactly. You cannot address issues of regenerative land and watershed management, health of the planet and peace without ending militarism. Everything else is trying to polish the turd as the old saying goes.
I wish someone would calculate the environmental impact of the proxy war in Ukraine, the flattening of Gaza and parts of the West Bank with Nord Stream and then try to defend Biden’s “environmental record,” and Ms. Giddy Kam defense of everything her boss every did. The DC machine is one sick monster.
Nader has advised disparate groups collaborate and become mutually supportive. I’d step it up by urging becoming a united political force.Here also was an opportunity to buck the undemocratic anointing of Harris and instead raise a real ruckus for an open convention. As long as we genuflect to the corporatized Democratic Establishment by going along with its exclusionary process, and docilely accepting their pick from the fraternity, we’ve allowed ourselves to become captured. We’ve ratified their power. Instead of being a necessary sharp splinter in their tough hide on behalf of our earth constituency, we are now in the Begging and Beseeching Chorus. Dispiriting. This is the crew (the Democratic Establishment) that put the screws to “allowing” progressives to primary status quo members of the Corporatized Fraternity. And Harris!? She failed the GOOD FoR THE PEOPLE challenge when she -as Attorney General – let that paragon of virtue Manuchin off the Justice for Mortgage Holders hook.
Oh how wonderful, we can vote for another amoral, mendacious genocidal sociopath. I’m sure KH will change her spots and become a champion of the environment while supporting more wars and genocide. Wars and burning and decomposing bodies are good for climate change? Maybe Nuclear Winter will ameliorate global warming?
Only focus on KH and DT, nothing else is allowed in the MassMedia. There is no alternative, no democratic choice: you vote for the BigMoney candidate that they tell you to vote for.
The intelligence-insulting hypocrisy of the so-called liberal (right-wing, authoritarian) media: no mention of Dr. Jill Stein? Green Party? Anything?
CD and Hypocrisy Now! are doing the “bait-and-switch” routine: before the elections they decry the corruption and atrocities of the Bipartisan Consensus, and then during Elections Inc., they tell us to VOTE GENOCIDE and at least half of the gullible population will.
As if the corporate owned, donor-centric Democratic Party will do a single meaningful thing to address global warming. Right. That is because any meaningful action to mitigate climate change will inconvenience donors, not to mention the neocon/military industrial complex heart of the cDP.
I would call this marketing effort another iteration of Charlie Brown, Lucy and the Football. After all, remember how these same fantastical people people sold an incompetent Biden as the great hope for the world in 2020? His single act of starting Cold War II has effectively put a stake in the heart of any meaningful action for mitigating climate change. In this, he may have killed the future for us all. Any positive moves on climate will certainly not come from “America’s leadership.” Based on past experience, that is sheer fantasy. Just like Harris and her supporters.
Hahaha! The Greenies say the GOP’s a threat, sure. But Kamala isn’t a threat? Please.
As number two in charge she’s currently presiding over an extremely dangerous, wasteful and reckless proxy war against the world’s number one nuclear superpower, a nation that’s a threat to no one except the American MIC. She’s also overseeing a repulsive genocide of well over 100,000 innocent Palestinians by the paranoid sadistic and creepy Talmudic sociopaths.
The two party duopoly should be ignored. The Greenies should hold their heads in shame.
Have you heard about how Kamala treats low level staffers and interns in her workplaces? The woman is shameless and egomaniacal and extremely dangerous.
Does it remind you of Biden’s carelessness with his dogs? Cool and unjust punishment!
Brother, people need to wake up! Biden = Harris = Biden= Harris…
Oh my God, these fools never learn! Do they really think she’s going to be different?