An electric vehicle charges up at a Georgia Power station located in the parking lot of a Burger King in Columbus. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder
This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.
Highlighted in Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign as one of the major crises facing the country, climate change has received much less attention in the 2024 race for the presidency.
The candidates, Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, share the twin goals of lowering energy costs and increasing U.S. jobs in the sector, but diverge widely in their plans to get there.
On the campaign trail, each has spent relatively little time detailing their own plans, instead criticizing the other as extreme.
Harris favors an expansion of renewable energy, which supplies power without the carbon emissions that are the primary driver of climate change.
She has touted her tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the broad domestic policy law Democrats pushed through along party lines that includes hundreds of millions in clean-energy tax credits.
Trump supports fossil fuel production, blaming policies to support renewable energy for rising energy prices. He has called for removing prohibitions on new oil and gas exploration to increase the supply of cheap fuel and reduce costs.
Promise: Promote fossil fuels
Both candidates promise to lower the cost of energy.
For Trump, that has involved hammering the Biden-Harris administration for encouraging renewable energy production.
Inflation was caused by “stupid spending for the Green New Deal, which was a green new scam, it turned out,” Trump said at a Sept. 26 press conference. “Do you notice that they never mention anything about environment anymore? What happened to the environment?”
The former president said at a Sept. 25 campaign stop he would “cut your energy (costs) in half,” by reducing regulations and cutting taxes.
He has not produced a detailed plan to achieve that goal.
Implicit in Trump’s argument is that the Biden administration’s focus on renewable energy has hampered oil and gas production, limiting supply and driving up prices.
But Harris has presented her support for renewable energy modes as part of a broader portfolio that includes fossil fuels.
Harris has highlighted the Inflation Reduction Act opened up new leases for oil and gas production while providing incentives for wind and solar power.
“I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” she said at a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Trump.
A report this month from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that U.S. fossil fuel production reached an all-time high in 2023.
Promise: Promote renewables
Harris has also pointed to provisions of the IRA that provide consumers with tax benefits for green technology, such as home heat pumps, as a way to bring down costs.
“Thanks to tax credits on home energy technologies in the Inflation Reduction Act, more than 3.4 million American families saved $8.4 billion in 2023,” her campaign’s 82-page economic plan reads.
Trump also says he supports some climate-conscious technology, including megadonor Elon Musk’s Tesla brand of electric vehicles, but that Democrats have overinvested in non-fossil fuels.
He has called elements of the Inflation Reduction Act “giveaways,” and has singled out spending on electric vehicle charging infrastructure as wasteful.
Promise: Restore jobs
Biden has long talked about a transition away from fossil fuels as a benefit to U.S. workers, positioning them on the cutting edge of a growing industry.
Harris has similarly framed the issue in economic terms, saying the Inflation Reduction Act and other climate policies have created jobs.
“We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs while I have been vice president,” she said at the Sept. 10 debate. “We have invested in clean energy to the point that we are opening up factories around the world.”
At a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this month, Harris said Trump’s focus on fossil fuels would hamper job growth, saying he would “send thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs overseas.”
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have said Democrats’ focus on renewable energy sources has limited existing energy jobs.
“We’ve got great energy workers in Ohio and all across our country,” Vance said at an August campaign stop in his home state. “They want to earn a reasonable wage and they want to power the American economy. Why don’t we have a president that lets them do exactly that?
“Unleash American energy,” he said. “Drill, baby, drill and let’s turn the page on this craziness.”
Promise: Repeal Democrats’ climate law
Trump has had harsh words for Democrats’ climate law, blaming its spending for rising inflation.
“To further defeat inflation, my plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam. Greatest scam in history, probably,” he told the Economic Club of New York in a Sept. 5 speech.
He said as president he would redirect any unspent funds in the law.
Trump has sought to distance himself from the policy blueprint Project 2025, written by the Heritage Institute.
But there is some overlap between what the conservative think tank has laid out and what Trump said he plans to do in a second term in the White House.
Project 2025 calls for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, describing it as a subsidy to special interests.
Harris often mentions her tie-breaking vote for the law and has described her plans as president to expand on the law’s objectives.
Harris’ policy plan said she “proudly cast” the tie-breaking vote for the climate bill and that, as president, she would “continue to invest in a thriving clean energy economy.”
She added she would seek to improve that spending by cutting regulations “so that clean energy projects are completed quickly and efficiently in a manner that protects our environment and public health.”
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