Tag: real climate leadership

  • Oil Change U.S. Response: Trump’s Speech at Fracking Conference Was a Dumpster Fire

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    October 23, 2019

    Contact:
    David Turnbull, david [at] priceofoil [dot] org
    Collin Rees, collin [at] priceofoil [dot] org

    Oil Change U.S. Response: Trump’s Speech at Fracking Conference Was a Dumpster Fire

    Today, President Donald Trump spoke to a fracking industry conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In response to the president’s speech, David Turnbull, Strategic Communications Director at Oil Change U.S., released the following statement:

    “From the hearty handshakes between the president and fossil fuel industry executives, to the toxic masculinity exuding from the president as he heckled protesters, to Trump’s rambling description of catastrophic deregulation at the expense of our climate and communities, this speech was a classic Trump dumpster fire.

    “While Trump’s descriptions of his administration’s actions were largely overblown or inaccurate, the reality is Trump’s oil-soaked administration has paved the way for the U.S. oil and gas industry to run roughshod on communities at the frontlines and to drill and frack our climate to the brink.

    “Our next president must do precisely the opposite. We need a president who will not shake hands with industry executives, but will instead take them to court for their crimes. We need a president who gets serious about a just transition away from fossil fuel production, not one attempting to bring back the past and resurrect a dirty industry.

    “Thankfully, what we’re seeing from Democratic presidential candidates is a newfound willingness to directly confront the fossil fuel industry. All of the top candidates have signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, most agree we must end new fossil fuel production on federal lands, and many want to stop fracking entirely. This is the kind of leadership our country needs. What was on display in Pittsburgh today was a disaster in every sense of the word.”

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  • Activists Double Down, Bring Call for a Climate Debate to DNC Headquarters

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    June 12, 2019

    CONTACT:
    Collin Rees, collin [at] priceofoil.org
    Crystal Mojica, crystal.mojica [at] greenpeace.org
    Ryan Schleeter, ryan.schleeter [at] greenpeace.org

    Activists Double Down, Bring Call for a Climate Debate to DNC Headquarters

    Washington, DC, June 12, 2019 — Last week, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Tom Perez announced the party will not host an official primary debate on the climate crisis, and will restrict candidates from participating in third-party climate debates. Despite backlash, Perez remained committed to this stance in a lengthy statement posted to Medium yesterday.

    In response, activists gathered at the DNC headquarters in Washington, DC, today to demand the party reverse its stance and provide a forum for presidential hopefuls to debate one of the greatest threats facing humanity today. Following pressure from the youth climate movement, over half the Democratic field [1] has already endorsed the call for a climate debate. Just yesterday at a campaign stop in Iowa, poll-leader Joe Biden went on record joining them.

    Photos from the event are available here (more will be added throughout the day).

    Karla Stephan, National Finance Director at US Youth Climate Strike and featured speaker at today’s event, said:
    “Young people across the country — and around the world — know the climate crisis requires serious consideration from the DNC and all candidates. Environmental conflicts are deeply interconnected with everything from public health to immigration to our food supply. The DNC is making it clear that the adults who got us into this crisis are unwilling to be the leaders to now solve this problem. We’re not giving up — and we’re not settling for soundbites. We demand action.”

    Collin Rees, Senior Campaigner at Oil Change U.S., said:
    “The DNC doesn’t seem to get it — the climate crisis is at the top of voters’ minds. Tom Perez thinks having a climate-focused debate isn’t ‘practical.’ What’s not practical is a full, robust discussion of the climate crisis being crammed into short answers to limited questions in a normal debate. We desperately need real, well-developed solutions to confront the fossil fuel industry and transform our economy in an equitable way, and voters deserve to hear candidates make their pitches for those solutions in a prime-time debate setting. It’s time for the DNC to discard its tired excuses and stand with people over polluters.”

    Janet Redman, Climate Campaign Director at Greenpeace USA, said:
    “Hosting an official debate on the climate crisis should be a no-brainer for the DNC — candidates want it and voters are demanding it. More people than ever are feeling the devastating impacts of climate change, and they deserve an ally in the White House who will carry forward the visionary promise of the Green New Deal and confront the fossil fuel executives standing in the way of progress. If we’re going to avert climate catastrophe in the next decade, we need to know where those vying to be our next president stand today.”

    RL Miller, Political Director at Climate Hawks Vote, said:
    “As a Woolsey Fire survivor, I’m appalled that the DNC is forbidding candidates from debating the greatest threat to my family’s existence. And I’m deeply worried that the refusal by the DNC to host a meaningful debate signals that the DNC is interested only in having candidates repeat pablum about climate science being real and returning to the Paris agreement. Voters are hungry for real solutions and only a debate will bring out the best plans.”

    Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, North America Director at 350.org Action, said:
    “The irony of Tom Perez and the Democratic National Committee rejecting a climate debate while holding the upcoming debate in Miami, a city already impacted by storms and sea level rise, is not lost on us. The DNC is effectively denying the will of the people, when really they should’ve learned lessons from the 2016 election. All of us deserve to know how the next US president plans to act on Day One to protect our health, safety, and democracy. While fossil fuel executives extract from our climate and communities, especially poor and working class Americans, Black, Indigenous and communities of color, it’s frontline communities who bear the costs of fossil fuel billionaires’ delay and deception. We will push harder to ensure our communities demands for real solutions are heard. We urge all candidates to back this call.”

    Leda Huta, Executive Director at the Endangered Species Coalition, said:
    “We are already experiencing devastating effects of global climate change – from increasingly severe storms, to bigger and hotter forest fires. There really isn’t a more important issue for candidates to be discussing than the fate of the Earth’s climate.”

    Liz Butler, Vice President of Organizing and Strategic Alliances at Friends of the Earth Action, said:
    “The DNC is stifling a robust discussion on the impacts of climate chaos and is allowing candidates to hide behind vague promises on addressing climate change. A debate on the climate crisis would have raised the stakes of what actions each candidate might take to slow climate change. The DNC needs to be clear that the climate crisis is front and center in this election and by foreclosing a climate debate, they are making the decision of who will lead the party forward even more difficult.”

    Tom Steyer, President at NextGen America, said:
    “Every day, lives are being threatened by the impacts of climate change, and the American people are demanding answers from their leaders. The DNC should reconsider their misguided decision to deny a climate debate and give the Democratic candidates a forum to educate voters on the biggest threat facing our country. It’s not only the smart thing to do, but the right one.”

    Mitch Jones, Climate & Energy Program Director at Food & Water Action, said:
    “The DNC needs to reverse its decision not to hold a climate crisis debate. The habitability of our planet is under existential threat and voters need to know where the candidates stand on this issue. We don’t have time to delay action and we need candidates that have aggressive, comprehensive plans to stave off the worsening effects of climate chaos and transition off fossil fuels.”

    Lisa Hymas, Climate and Energy Program Director at Media Matters for America, said:
    “The DNC plans to rely on host media outlets to ask about climate change during debates, but that approach failed miserably the last time around. Only 1.5% of questions during the 2016 presidential primary season debates were about climate change, and nearly half of the debates featured no climate questions at all. If the DNC is serious about having candidates discuss responses to the climate crisis in depth, then it needs to dedicate a whole debate to it.”

    Brandy Doyle, Campaign Manager at CREDO Action, said:
    “We don’t have time for this. We can’t wait another four years for the Democratic Party to start taking the climate crisis seriously. Without a substantive debate to help voters evaluate candidates’ proposed solutions, we can’t ensure that Democrats will nominate someone who is truly ready and able to lead. Tom Perez and the rest of the DNC would be wise to act with the urgency this crisis demands and allow candidates an opportunity to share and debate their climate plans in a meaningful way. Until they do, the grassroots pressure will only increase.”

    Varshini Prakash, Co-Founder at Sunrise Movement, said:
    “Climate change is an existential threat that impacts every aspect of our lives. Young people are tired of the DNC’s bogus excuses about how a climate debate would be ‘impractical.’ Our survival is on the line and we have a right to a real debate between the candidates on their plans to preserve civilization as we know for our generation and those to come.”

    Today, organizers are delivering more than 200,000 petition signatures from people across the country asking the DNC to listen to voters and organize a debate. The signatures were collected by CREDO Action, Greenpeace USA, Climate Hawks Vote, Oil Change U.S., Daily Kos, Friends of the Earth Action, Public Citizen, Endangered Species Coalition, People Demanding Action, CPD Action, Women’s March National, Bold Nebraska, Bold Alliance, Amazon Watch, 350 Action, Sunrise Movement, Food & Water Action, NextGen America, US Youth Climate Strike, and MoveOn.

    After receiving almost no airtime [2] during the 2016 debates, climate change has already emerged as one of the defining issues of the 2020 election. An April CNN poll ranked climate change the top issue among Democratic voters, with 96 percent of respondents saying it’s”very important” that candidates take”aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change.”

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    Notes to Editors: 

    [1] Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Julian Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mike Gravel, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Seth Moulton, Beto O’Rourke, Tim Ryan, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang have all publicly called for a climate debate.

    [2] “The 2016 presidential debates all but ignored climate change,” Grist, 10-19-16

  • No More Dilly-Dallying, Dems: It’s Time for a #ClimateDebate

    Back in the 2016 presidential election, there were  zero questions on the climate crisis in the general election debates. That’s right, zero. And in the preceding Democratic primary debates, the few questions that were asked were shallow and inconsistent, not spurring the kind of robust debate required to address one of the most critical issues of our time.

    Those days of climate silence are over. Thanks to the tireless commitment of grassroots activists across the nation, families from coast to coast who are seeing the effects of climate change and recognizing the urgency through first-hand accounts, and specifically the dedicated young people who have been making some serious waves, the climate crisis has become a top-tier issue in the Democratic primary.

    In this critical 2020 election season, we’re joining allies in demanding that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) acknowledge the importance and urgency of the climate crisis – as well as its renewed political prominence – by devoting one of the presidential primary debates entirely to climate change.

    Due to our collective efforts, the debate is changing and the bar for climate leadership is being raised – in a big way. A new poll released from CNN shows that, for the first time ever, climate change is the number one issue of concern for Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters. This is big. A full 96% of respondents in these groups feel it’s important that Democratic candidates support “taking aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change.”

    A Monmouth University poll specifically of Iowa Democratic voters — some of the first voters who will have an official say on the nomination — released last month showed that climate change is a top issue, right after health care, and polling on voters in early primary states from February found that climate is a key motivating issue and that “having a plan to address the climate crisis is seen as essential and is a driver of vote choice.”

    It’s should be no surprise, then, that candidates are paying keen attention to the electorate and coming out with detailed climate plans that start to meet the scale of the crisis. In addition, the list of major presidential candidates signing on to the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge has now hit twelve as more than half of the field of Democratic candidates refuse contributions from the PACs, lobbyists, and executives of fossil fuel companies. When the primary debates start this summer, we expect those candidates still accepting fossil fuel money to represent a small minority of behind-the-times holdouts –marking a historic shift from past election cycles.

    Now, we need to hear detailed explanations of candidates’ climate plans through a full debate focused on climate change. A climate debate will leave room for an informed moderator to take the time needed to press candidates beyond the usual platitudes and seek out specific details of their plans to tackle Big Oil, Gas, and Coal and ensure a just transition. This way, voters will be able to know that whoever is nominated to take on Trump in 2020 has what it takes to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and fight for the bold solutions to the climate crisis that this moment requires.

    Calls for a climate debate are getting louder by the day, and presidential candidates are raising their own voices in support. On Earth Day, Gov. Jay Inslee penned an open letter in support of our movement’s grassroots call for a robust climate debate, urging his fellow candidates to join him. He wrote, “together, as Democratic candidates, we can speak with one voice and demand that our party truly debates the future of our planet.” Fellow candidates Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Julián Castro have publicly voiced their support. Who will be next?

    As of now, the DNC is planning for twelve Democratic debates during the 2020 primary season, six in 2019 and then six in 2020. Specific details are still being hammered out, but we know the first Democratic primary debate will be June 26-27 in Miami, hosted by NBC News, MSNBC, and Telemundo. We’ll be joining allies to push for substantive climate questions in every single debate – but we’ll keep up our concerted push for a debate dedicated exclusively to the climate crisis as well.

    We need even more pressure to convince the DNC to host a full debate on the climate crisis. Here’s how you can take action today:

     

    PAID FOR BY OIL CHANGE U.S., WWW.OILCHANGEUS.ORG, NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE, CANDIDATE’S AUTHORIZED POLITICAL COMMITTEE, OR CANDIDATE’S AGENTS.

  • A Big Week for Real Climate Leadership in the 2020 Primary

    It’s been a big week for advancing the climate discussion in the 2020 presidential primaries and our collective efforts to raise the bar for real climate leadership.

    On Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren released her plan for the U.S.’s public lands, which includes an important commitment to sign a moratorium on new fossil fuel leases on public lands and public waters on Day One of her presidency. The plan also includes important elements such as heavy investments in green jobs and respect for Indigenous sovereignty, including exploring co-management and the return of resources to Indigenous protection wherever possible.

    Later on Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders joined in by releasing an updated climate platform from his campaign to “Combat Climate Change and Passing a Green New Deal.” The platform focuses on Sanders’ plans to create millions of high-quality jobs, transition to 100% sustainable energy, ban fracking and all new fossil fuel infrastructure, and ban fossil fuel leases on public lands, end exports of coal, natural gas, and crude oil, and more.

    And today, the New York Times released the results of a “climate policy survey” sent to all 18 major presidential campaigns, asking contenders a variety of questions regarding their plans to confront the climate crisis. It’s worth noting that not all candidates responded to all questions on the survey, and that Senator Sanders declined to go on the record with official statements in many cases. But, caveats aside, these new survey results provide an interesting window into how candidates are planning to confront the fossil fuel industry and the climate crisis, and specifically into how they’re willing to discuss these issues in a public forum.

    Expressing vague support for the Paris Agreement and renewable energy is good, but it’s far from sufficient in a time of rapidly mounting climate impacts and new reports on a weekly basis showing what a deep hole the world is in on climate. Even as candidates are talking more about climate change than the past elections, we’ve yet to see most of them lay out detailed plans to deal with it. That’s why we’ve joined the push for a Democratic primary debate focused solely on climate crisis and candidates’ specific plans to phase out fossil fuel extraction and accelerate the clean energy transition.

    Real climate leadership in 2019 means being willing to stand up and vocally oppose the fossil fuel industry, and to talk about how to stop the industry’s expansion and carefully phase-out fossil fuel production in a way that protects impacted communities and workers. As Republicans and their fossil fuel industry sponsors continue to obscure and deny the reality of the climate crisis, it’s more important than ever for Democrats to put forth and proudly tout bold visions for how to stop the buildout of deadly fossil fuel infrastructure and implement an aggressive transition to a new economy that protects the dignity of workers and communities.

    With that in mind, this week has seen some critically important public statements from candidates about their plans to constrain Big Oil, Gas, and Coal’s expansion and implemented a controlled wind-down of fossil fuel production that addresses environmental injustices and strengthens labor protections. Here’s a quick run-down of what candidates have been saying this week to advance real climate leadership via the NYT survey or other public statements:

    Implementing a “Climate Test” on Energy Projects

    Gov. Jay Inslee (from NYT survey): “One of the first important steps that must be taken […] is to reinstate crucial Obama-era federal climate policies, and strengthen them. This includes […] how federal agencies consider the climate impacts of major energy projects in their environmental review processes.”

    Andrew Yang (from NYT survey): “I will direct the EPA to include CO2 in its review of standards, and specifically with respect to oil refineries.”

    Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (from NYT survey): “I oppose subsidies for fossil fuel companies and have spoken out repeatedly against the influence that Big Oil and carbon-based industries wield in Washington.”

    Gov. Jay Inslee (from NYT survey): “In our state efforts […] we have found the vast amount of carbon savings came from investments, and there are many ways to fund those, including rolling back the Trump tax cuts and ending subsidies for fossil-fuel companies.”

    Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (from NYT survey): “I would take on the fossil-fuel industry by ending the $26 billion per year the American people are currently paying in subsidies and invest that in our green [energy] economy.”

    Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (from NYT survey): “Details on how to achieve 100 percent renewable energy goals by 2035 include […] ending fossil-fuel subsidies.”

    Marianne Williamson (from NYT survey): “I would end all subsidies for dirty energy and transfer them to subsidies for clean energy.”

    Banning Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

    Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (from NYT survey): “Details on how to achieve 100 percent renewable energy goals by 2035 include […] a moratorium on new major fossil-fuel projects and banning fracking.”

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (from public lands plan released Monday): “On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that says no more drilling — a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases, including for drilling offshore and on public lands.”

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (from climate platform released Monday): “Ban fracking and new fossil fuel infrastructure and keep oil, gas, and coal in the ground by banning fossil fuel leases on public lands.”

    Banning Exports of Dirty Energy

    Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (from NYT survey): “Details on how to achieve 100 percent renewable energy goals by 2035 include […] a ban on crude oil and LNG exports.”

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (from climate platform released Monday): “End exports of coal, natural gas, and crude oil.”

    None of these positions alone will be sufficient, but they’re all important contributions to what a Green New Deal or any other comprehensive climate policy framework should look like. We’ll be on the lookout in the coming weeks and months for candidates to keep fleshing out their climate plans with specific policies and plans to meet the transformational scale of action needed to pass a Green New Deal that phases out the fossil fuel industry and phases in a new era of prosperity for all.

    It’s no mere coincidence that every single contender listed above has taken the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge to reject contributions from fossil fuel industry PACs, lobbyists, and executives – refusing the industry’s political influence is a key step toward being willing to take bold stances like the ones below to address the climate crisis. We look forward to seeing other candidates rise to meet the new bar for climate leadership and continue to raise it by signing the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge and outlining bold policy visions like these.

     

     

    PAID FOR BY OIL CHANGE U.S., WWW.OILCHANGEUS.ORG, NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE, CANDIDATE’S AUTHORIZED POLITICAL COMMITTEE, OR CANDIDATE’S AGENTS.