Harris-Walz Plan to Destroy Our Energy Production
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are radical extremists on climate, the Green New Deal, and energy production. They put Joe Biden to shame.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, running as radical environmental extremists to replace Joe Biden in the White House, appear set to expand the Green New Deal and Inflation Reduction Act should they win power in November. We know what a Harris-Walz administration would do to domestic energy production because we’ve seen what they have already done in their individual roles. While environmentalist extremists chide them for not explicitly stating their radical goals to “decarbonize” the American economy in a new administration, they’ve already shown us throughout their political careers exactly what they want to do.
Under the first Donald Trump administration, the United States became a net energy exporter for the first time ever. By contrast, President Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris concocted a myriad of federal policies that severely weakened that position. As governor of Minnesota, Walz similarly bound the state’s economy with burdensome environmental regulations.
No mystery exists as to the Harris-Walz environmental agenda—even if they refuse to open up about it prior to Election Day in an attempt not to scare away moderate and undecided voters. Both Harris and Walz have extensive records as holders of public office, having left the private sector decades prior. Walz, in particular, represented a rural district in Minnesota as a congressman prior to running for governor, and has extensive experience in allowing his views to … evolve, shall we say, depending on his audience.
Let’s take a detailed look at what we know, based on Harris’ and Walz’s histories in office.
AG Harris Has a History of Suing Big Oil, Governments Over Climate
As the attorney general of California, Harris engaged in one of the institutional left’s favorite tactics, known as “Sue and Settle.” In this scheme, activist lawyers sue a government agency staffed by friendly bureaucrats who agree with the position of their supposed legal adversary. Instead of fighting it out in court, the agency will settle, creating a windfall for the aggressive lawyer and a legal precedent for new public policy that never has to face legislative debate. As attorney general, Harris engaged in nuisance lawsuits against the Obama administration. In 2016, she sued the Department of the Interior over the potential for fracking off the California coast. She also used her office to investigate Exxon Mobil, accusing the fossil fuel giant of lying to the public about the effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) on climate.
Since her presidential campaign began, Kamala Harris has not made any policy stances known, focusing instead on “joy.” Yet her history of aggression towards conventional energy leaves us a lot of clues.
Gov. Walz Passed Aggressive Green Legislation
In 2021, Gov. Walz doubled Minnesota’s environmental spending, from $1 billion to $2 billion annually. This colossal spending increase foreshadows what he’d like to do at the federal level. That bloated spending contributed to a reduction in the state budget surplus—from $17.5 billion in 2023 down to a projected $3.7 billion in 2025, despite several new taxes. Republicans in the legislative minority called it an “activist-driven budget.” The new taxes included indexing the gas tax to inflation, a new 50 cent fee on deliveries, and several sales tax and fee increases. The massive new budget will pay for a massive expansion of passenger rail. It also included $100 million for grants to cities to deal with climate change. The rest of the budget is a grab bag of progressive goals modeled on California’s radically liberal spending model. Despite all the new taxes, the budget still requires the state to borrow around $1.5 billion for infrastructure projects.
According to Scientific American, Gov. Walz also “adopt[ed] California’s car pollution standards and pass[ed] a clean electricity standard that mandates zero-carbon power by 2040.”
Senator Harris Co-sponsored the Green New Deal
In 2019, then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D–CA) signed on as cosponsor of the Green New Deal, the “non-binding” resolution offered by Sen. Ed Markey (D–MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY). The Green New Deal, according to the New York Times, called for the federal government to convert the electrical grid to 100 percent “clean energy” by 2030; declared clean air, clean water and healthy food as basic human rights; and demanded other “basic human rights” like free health care and affordable housing for all. The Times quoted Harris at the time, saying, “Climate change is real, and it poses an existential threat to us as human beings, and it is within our power to do something about it. I am supporting the Green New Deal!”
Harris ranked as the #1 most liberal senator in her time in the upper chamber, grading to the left of Bernie Sanders. The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo when Harris declared her candidacy that listed her most radical positions. As the NRSC notes, she promised to end the Senate filibuster in order to pass the Green New Deal, and has pledged several times to ban fracking. She also vowed to ban plastic straws and the consumption of red meat.
NRSC sends out memo with Harris negatives — including a final section: “weird” pic.twitter.com/xl10ZS5tqh
— Riley Beggin (@rbeggin) July 22, 2024
Rep. Walz Disagreed with Gov. Walz on Climate
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has executed an ambitious and radical green agenda. Congressman Tim Walz of rural Minnesota had much more of a pro-energy orientation. Rep. Walz served four terms in congress before his election as a radical green governor. In his time in Washington, D.C., he voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline and expanded offshore oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, and Pacific Ocean. He took votes of convenience against some environmental regulations and in favor of nuclear energy.
Now that he’s governor of the state, however, most of his votes come from the blue population centers, so he doesn’t have to pretend to court rural votes. Unlike democrats from energy-producing states, like Joe Manchin or John Fetterman, Walz has no need to moderate his radical climate stance as governor, or as a vice presidential candidate.
Harris Made Big Climate Promises When She Ran For President
Here's Harris talking about the Green New Deal when she ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2019:
As reported by E&E News,
Harris’ energy record as a senator, and later as a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary of 2020, was to the left of Biden’s on many issues and sharply critical of the oil and gas industry.
She called for an end to hydraulic fracturing — a drilling technique in the oil and gas industry that uses chemicals and water to fracture rock and release hydrocarbons. She also urged a ban on plastic straws and called for the end of the filibuster, a Senate legislative tool that ensures some members of the minority party have to sign off on most legislation.
Harris was one of the original co-sponsors of the Green New Deal, the nonbinding resolution introduced in 2019 by Democratic progressives like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey. The resolution stalled, but some of its ideas made it into the Inflation Reduction Act . . . .
She also co-sponsored the Climate Equity Act of 2020, which would have created an arm of the Congressional Budget Office to score legislation based on effects to historically disadvantaged communities.
Harris said multiple times in her 2020 presidential run that she would end “on day one” all federal support for the oil and gas industry, and would block new oil and gas drilling leases. Her “Climate for the People” plan pledged an eye-popping $10 trillion in new climate spending, and a “Clean Economy” by 2045.
Vice President Harris Supported the Biden Pause on Key Natural Gas Exports
E&E News also noted the Biden-Harris administration created much tougher rules on offshore oil and gas facilities, awarding the smallest number of new offshore oil auctions in history. On top of that, the White House bragged in a press release in January about the “temporary pause” on pending approvals of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exports:
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a temporary pause on pending decisions on exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to non-FTA countries until the Department of Energy can update the underlying analyses for authorizations. The current economic and environmental analyses DOE uses to underpin its LNG export authorizations are roughly five years old and no longer adequately account for considerations like potential energy cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers beyond current authorizations or the latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. Today, we have an evolving understanding of the market need for LNG, the long-term supply of LNG, and the perilous impacts of methane on our planet. We also must adequately guard against risks to the health of our communities, especially frontline communities in the United States who disproportionately shoulder the burden of pollution from new export facilities. The pause, which is subject to exception for unanticipated and immediate national security emergencies, will provide the time to integrate these critical considerations.
Translation: we need time to come up with a good reason to end all exports. In the meantime, we’ll make it so difficult through red tape that many LNG export companies will simply stop operating.
Harris-Walz: The Most Radical Anti-Energy Ticket in American History
Sure, now that Harris has advanced to the general election, she says she no longer supports banning fracking. One could be forgiven for being a bit cynical about her new-found religion. As Covering Climate Now noted in a recent webinar for journalists:
Harris’s climate record is more aggressive than President Joe Biden’s. In the past, she’s talked about suing oil companies and focused on environmental justice. Look to her record as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general, and US senator for how she might tackle climate change as president.
Several journalists remarked in that webinar that Harris didn’t say anything about climate or the environment in her announcement video. They reminded the audience that political considerations dictate that Harris must play it close to the vest in an effort to win the presidency.
Harris and Walz have clear records on the environment when they’ve held executive positions in federal and state government. To the extent Walz needed rural votes while serving in congress, he moderated some of his stances, but he still maintained a 75 percent lifetime voting record with the League of Conservation Voters.
Similar constraints will moderate what they say in their attempt to defeat the Trump-Vance ticket, but make no mistake: The Harris-Walz ticket represents the most radical green, anti-energy, pro-climate hysteria ticket in American political history. Simply offering full-throttle support for the Inflation Reduction Act and Green New Deal would put them over the top, but what they plan to do once in office will take it even further. Both have championed lavish subsidies for EVs and green energy, and both have stated their desire to end the reliance on “fossil fuels” by the middle of this century.
Under a Harris-Walz administration, America’s domestic energy production may not survive.
