Attending the Virtual Environmental and Clean Energy Reception with Vice President Joe Biden was an interesting experience. I found out about it early because I had signed up to raise money for him once Sanders and Warren endorsed Joe Biden, so I attended a regional Biden finance call, where the event was mentioned.
I recruited donors among active environmentalists to try and get a group of people who could ask climate questions. As a group, my personal network raised a bit over $13000. Unusually, the Biden campaign indicated that they were not providing extra access for big donors or fundraisers at this event — traditionally $2800 donors get a selfie with him at in-person events. Questions needed to be submitted by email in advance, and were forwarded to staff and to Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board.
The Biden campaign telegraphed via the press that they would likely announce additional climate policy in the near future. With Earth Day coming up, it was pretty clear when the announcements would happen.
I used my existing system of fundraiser tracking I put together during the primary to keep tabs on who was raising money, and got some additional information from one of the people in my group. We spotted Dan Reicher, Nathan Wyeth, and Steve Boyd recruiting attendees, so it was clear that despite what felt like significant fundraising, my group would be a minority of the attendees.
Our group coordinated the Monday before the event in order to plan questions and make sure everybody knew how to get on the call and get heard. We were expecting a turnout of a few dozen, and figured that a group of our size stood a very good chance at being heard. During the hours before our meeting, the Biden campaign telegraphed via the press that they would likely announce additional climate policy in the near future. With Earth Day coming up, it was pretty clear when the announcements would happen.
We each chose (and then edited) a decarbonization question, and submitted them to the Biden staff the morning of the day prior to the fundraiser. We expected that at most one of our questions to be asked, but figured that getting them in early would put their contents on the agenda for any policy announcement.
Prior to the fundraiser, the Biden campaign held an endorsement event with Al Gore, during which Biden explicitly endorsed the idea of retrofitting buildings to reduce energy use. This might have been a response to some of our questions, or it might simply have been something which was in the air as a policy possibility.
When the fundraiser started and I got out of the Zoom waiting room, I was really shocked by the number of attendees — over 300. A typical house party fundraiser has maybe 150, and many are smaller. Senior staff from multiple major environmental organizations were present, as well as the expected solar and wind people, and a few corporate executives, and spouses. The audience was rather whiter than the overall Democratic party, reflecting the distribution of wealth in America, as well as the historical base of the environmental movement.
Dan Reicher, Executive Director at the Stanford Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, introduced Biden, and then they handed things off to Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, who would read a question, and then let Biden answer. Only one question — about how Biden would earn the youth vote, got asked directly by anybody else.
Most of what was covered got covered in more detail during the Biden/Gore event earlier in the day — this event mostly served as an opportunity to reiterate those points. He moved from talking exclusively about 2050, as he had earlier in the campaign, to talking about a 2035 date for significant greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and discussed making it so that the country would be on an irreversible path of emissions reduction.
Biden used the words “after this coronavirus is gone, we’ve got to focus on climate justice”. Mary Nichols then spoke about infrastructure injustice, and the need for creating justice through how we choose climate solutions and create an economic recovery. Biden began talking about a trillion-dollar investment in the power grid to do better transmission of renewable energy, and reiterated his discussion of a half-million chargers along highways, as well as about broadband and clean water investments. There was a fairly extensive discussion about how much energy is wasted due to a “lack of the [building] envelope that they are being educated within” but the discussion with Gore went much farther, with explicit talk about retrofits (Gore’s words) and efficiency improvements. The specific actions we could take to ensure a just transition weren’t fleshed out in detail, even if Biden is starting to talk about the issue.
Biden then talked about having all federal-built buildings to be resilient — he wants more efficiency, and the same with roads and power grids. The discussion rambled a bit. He described what sounded like a Tesla Powerwall unit without mentioning the product name, much as he has been at other events.
He also discussed the desire to let states lead, and impose more stringent requirements than the states.
Biden closed with ‘Promse Me Dad” discussion.
My group never got to ask a question during the call, but on the whole, I think the process of asking him to take a stronger climate stabilzation position was really interesting — and we got a chance to (perhaps) have influenced policy a little bit.