Harris helped pass one of the strongest climate laws. Her policies don’t stop there | Leah C Stokes
www.theguardian.com
America’s landmark climate law, which turns two years old this month, has Harris’s signature all over it

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When we spoke, Harris demonstrated a depth I didn’t expect – she geeked out over heat pumps, confessed her love of electric school buses and described the heavy burdens poorer communities face from air pollution. The more I learned about her background, the more I found a clear pattern: policy ideas that she championed became central to federal legislation. Our nation’s landmark climate law, which is turning two years old this month, has Harris’s signature all over it.

You can trace her influence by looking at her earliest days as a politician, then following the bills she sponsored as a senator, and finally examining her 2020 Presidential campaign platform. During the earliest days of the Biden-Harris administration, when the Build Back Better agenda was coming together, Harris made sure that her priorities stayed on the list: electric school buses, cleaner water and investments for communities.

While she hasn’t been given the credit, as vice-president, Harris has worked behind the scenes to champion her climate policies. And she’s managed to get a long list of her ideas signed into law.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1510·
    4 months ago

    If Harris gets credit for that, who gets credit for this?

    For the last six years, America has outstripped Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC countries in crude oil production. And it has picked up the pace under Biden, who had approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands by last October than former President Donald Trump had by the same point in his presidency.

    https://www.vox.com/climate/24098983/biden-oil-production-climate-fossil-fuel-renewables

    Because despite anything else, we’re producing more fossil fuels than ever before.

    Climate is a global problem, and shipping our fossil fuels literally to the other side of the globe (using fossil fuels btw) so it can be burnt in a place with practically zero regulations isn’t exactly a good thing…

    • silence7@slrpnk.net
      61·
      4 months ago

      The US is extracting a lot more oil, but sharply cut its use of coal; gas, wind, and solar have displaced much of it for electric generation in the US because they’re cheaper.

      Oil use in the US has also been flat; the increased extraction is for export:

      As to who: the bulk of it is from the fracking boom that’s happened on private land in the Permian basin. There’s something of an overhang of federal leases as well, but there has been a sharp cut in the quantity of new leases issued. (Drilling permits are another matter; there courts have generally ruled that the executive branch can’t just decline to issue them once a lease is issued)

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        4 months ago

        There’s something of an overhang of federal leases as well, but there has been a sharp cut in the quantity of new leases issued

        Nope, which is why I quoted my link already:

        For the last six years, America has outstripped Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC countries in crude oil production. And it has picked up the pace under Biden, who had approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands by last October than former President Donald Trump had by the same point in his presidency.

        I’ve honestly lost count of how many times ives explained this exact thing to you bud…

        I don’t think it’s going to start working

        • silence7@slrpnk.net
          71·
          4 months ago

          As I’ve said before, he has limited power to say ‘no’ to a drilling permit once a lease is issued. So what he has done is sharply reduce the issuance of new leases:

          That’s a very big deal, even if it isn’t anywhere near enough.

          Actually fixing the problem means:

          • Having a majority in the House
          • Having support in the Senate to overcome a filibuster and change the law (60% supermajority)
          • Having courts willing to go along with breaking something they’ve previously deemed a ‘property right’

          That requires power that neither Biden nor the climate movement has yet held.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            4 months ago

            What?

            You say he can’t do anything except approve them, but he’s literally canceled some existing ones.

            https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2023/0907/Biden-cancels-remaining-Alaska-fossil-fuel-leases-amid-criticism

            How can he do that, but he’s forced to approve new ones?

            Hell, at first he was very public about not approving them, until he did a 180.

            Why do you think he is forced to approve them?

            He’s done some good things, but only do to vocal public criticisms of his actions. Luckily that’s enough to show that if he wanted to, he could consistently be pro-climate.

            • silence7@slrpnk.net
              71·
              4 months ago

              He was able to cancel those ones because they were issued without proper environmental review and because they’d only just been issued. Even so, actually making the cancelation stick required winning a subsequent lawsuit.

              Most other cases aren’t ones where lease cancelation would win in court.