With a still expanding field of new entrants and candidates making appearances across the nation, some of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls have begun to provide more detailed information on the policies they would support should they secure the nomination. As candidates make their positions on environmental and energy policy, Daily Kos will review their stated policy goals, review their proposals, and present them in a consistent manner in a series of “report cards” on climate change policy.
What this is: An attempt to place environmental and energy concerns into similar “buckets” so that they can be compared side by side for the depth and quality — to see what’s left when the rhetoric is gone.
How this will work: Whether you support or oppose the Green New Deal, what’s actually in the proposed legislation is probably not what you think. The intention here isn’t to score candidates based on their support for the GND—or penalize them if they oppose it. Just to use the GND goals as the closest thing available to a “neutral” description of the broad issues against which to align the stated policies.
Why these candidates: Because they made the information available. That’s all. There’s no implied support for either of these candidates in featuring them in the first version of this feature.
What this is not: This is not a review of the candidate’s history of environmental legislation, statements, or support. For example, while running for Senate against Ted Cruz, Beto O’Rourke expressed support for fracking as vital to national security. But even Jay Inslee, who has long made climate change a part of his policies, supported a massive refinery that was part of the largest fracking-related projects in history during his time as governor. What counts here is the stated future policy of the candidates, not their past—where are they going, not where they have been.
Let’s get started.
The following headings break the items in each candidate’s plan into terms that align, at least roughly, with goals described in the Green New Deal. At some point in this evaluation you’re likely to find it seems unfair to one candidate or the other. Because, after all, the candidates did not write their plans to fit this evaluation. Hang in there and see how things look across the board.
Sources
The candidate’s positions come from information available at these sites:
Jay Inslee’s 100% Clean Energy for America
Beto O’Rourke’s Taking on Climate Change
1. Timeline for 100% clean energy production
This is not the item that the Green New Deal puts first, but for many people evaluating the plans, that timeline is the “top line.” It’s certainly the single number that brings the most attention. But … it’s a little deceptive. While the Green New Deal calls for a “10 year mobilization” to achieve 100% clean energy, it’s actually much less prescriptive in declaring that everything has to be wrapped up by that date. Still, that number has been widely published so in this case the 2030 “all green” date can be taken as the most optimistic, most drastic, most “the train is coming and we need to stop laying ties and get off the tracks now!” date. In fact, Ed Markey—one of the two authors of the Green New Deal—has indicated that the 10 years was never meant to represent the point at which the nation would reach zero emissions, and that he supported the 2050 target.
Already critics have come after the dates for both Inslee and O’Rourke, and as you might expect, charges have been made that Inslee’s date is “too ambitious” while O’Rourke’s date is “too late.” At this time, this comparison isn’t seeking to evaluate whether the candidate’s numbers are accurate or their goals achievable—this is what they say they intend to do.
Both candidates have goals for transportation and electricity production that align to bring them to 100% green on the same date. O’Rourke’s plan contains a intermediate goal of reaching “halfway there by 2030.”
Winner: Inslee
2. Dealing with the harm climate change is already causing.
How a candidate moves to clean, renewable energy is important. But climate change is here now. From Midwest floods to coastal hurricanes to widespread wildfires, a good plan also includes dealing with communities already affected by climate change. This is actually where the GND starts—the items that it considers most important.
On this point, O’Rourke’s plan speaks out strongly. Part four of his plan is directed at defending communities “that are preparing for and fighting against extreme weather.” There’s a strong commitment to increasing the funding for disaster planning, for addressing weather events by helping communities to guard against a repeat, and for helping to transition communities away from destructive practices. O’Rourke’s plan also acknowledges that the impact of climate change often falls most strongly on poor communities and communities of color and provides for funding that would directed at helping these communities, as well as those directly impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels.
O’Rourke: “Climate change has a distressingly disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities across the United States and around the world. Race is the number one indicator for where toxic and polluting facilities are today.”
While Inslee’s program references the current spate of climate disasters as an inspiration for his plan, his published plan does not seem to address improvements to disaster planning to help those already struggling with climate change … or anything related.
O’Rourke’s plan also includes public health grants for communities facing “unacceptably poor air or water quality” due to climate change and other environmental pollution.
Winner (by a wide margin): O’Rourke
3. Changing the way we build homes, offices, and infrastructure.
A major part of any plan to clean up America’s energy production is to look at where that energy goes — into our homes, offices, and businesses. The Green New Deal includes looking at every aspect of how we build new structures, how we plan for infrastructure replacement, and even updates to existing buildings.
Inslee’s plan includes a strong focus on buildings, with a date for moving to net-zero construction that’s actually five years closer than his overall plan to get to 100% clean energy. He would push for a “Zero-Carbon Building Standard by 2023” and for “dramatically increasing access to federal financing to fund both retrofits and new construction” for public buildings. Inslee would also make energy and climate standards a requirement for HUD funding and federal housing tax credits.
O’Rourke’s plan calls for housing grants that would help Americans trapped in poor, quality / high energy housing move to more sustainable buildings, including closing the “affordability gap” that is growing in many areas. His plan also calls for “decarbonizing” across all sectors of government purchases, supporting the production of clean materials.
Inslee’s plan is simply more direct on this point, and while in some ways it might be less ambitious, he edges out a win simply for bringing more focus to housing, construction, and related issues.
Winner (by a nose): Inslee
4. Updating the agricultural sector to deal with climate change.
The Green New Deal does not “ban cows,” no matter how many times it gets repeated. It does recognize that any plan for dealing with climate change has to deal with agriculture — both for the impact that industry has on the environment, and because the rapidly changing environment is having a devastating effect on farmer and farm communities.
Inslee has promised that “in the coming weeks” he will introduce “additional major policies” including some directed at “sustainable and thriving agriculture.” But those policies are simply not there at the moment.
O’Rourke’s plan includes “Farming and ranching grants” both to deal with existing disasters and plan for improvements. And part of his big $5 trillion overall plan is aimed at providing “technologies and markets that allow farmers and ranchers to profit from the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions they secure” as well as expanding federal crop insurance for farmers struggling to transition under a changing environment.
Honestly, Beto’s plan is far from complete. While providing farmers with relief from climate change’s impacts, it doesn’t really address the changes needed to create a sustainable industry.
Winner (for now): O’Rourke
5. Overhaul transportation with clean vehicles, public transportation and high speed rail.
Transportation is a source of 40% of the carbon dioxide in the United States, and an even higher percentage of some other pollutants. And transportation requires massive spending and planning on infrastructure. It demands an approach equally as aggressive as dealing with electrical production.
Inslee’s plan for transportation matches the pacing and importance he places on energy production. Where Trump has been rolling back standards for cars and trucks, Inslee would crank them down yer by year to reach “100% ZEVs in light- and medium-duty new vehicle sales by 2030.” He would also dedicate “significant new federal investments” behind supporting manufacture of electric vehicles and components while preserving and expand the Electric Vehicle Tax Credit. Inslee would also conduct a “Clean Cars for Clunkers” providing incentive to buyers whose income might not allow them to benefit from the tax credit plan. His plan would also focus on the use of zero-emission buses both in local transport and schools. Rail, high speed or otherwise, isn’t mentioned in Inslee’s otherwise quite detailed plan.
O’Rourke’s plan is much less thorough on the transportation front. He aims for reaching a 100% clean fleet by the same date as his energy plan, but his method for doing so is through “advancing consumer choice and market competition in electricity and transportation” and through transportation grants. His plan has no mention of rail, and lacks any details about how electric vehicles will be supported.
Inslee certainly takes this one, and it’s a joy for EV owners or would-be owners, but it’s not a complete transportation plan.
Winner (by a bunch): Inslee
6. Support biodiversity, natural ecosystems, and climate resiliency.
One of the biggest points of the Green New Deal, big enough that it’s actually scattered across almost half the plans 13 goals, is a recognition that just clamping down on greenhouses gases is far from enough. To prevent ecological disaster, it’s vital that any plan protect biodiversity and recognize that restoring natural areas is requisite to protect coasts from flooding, protect agriculture from collapse, and protect everyone against a broad failure of overall ecosystem.
This is an area where, once again, O’Rourke wins by default because it’s simply not covered in Inslee’s current plan. O’Rourke presses both to “protect our most wild, beautiful, and biodiverse places for generations to come” and makes “leveraging natural climate solutions and supporting ecosystems and biodiversity conservation” a major part of his plan for getting to 100% clean energy.
This is one of those areas where Inslee has promised more in the future, but for the moment, Beto wins in a walkover.
Winner: O’Rourke
Overall Winner — Democratic voters
Yes, that sounds like a cliched cop-out, but it just happens to be true. In the 2016 election, not one question about the environment or climate-change came up at a debate. That candidates aren’t just putting out documents about their plans for climate change, but making climate change their first detailed policy documents, represents a huge advance in recognizing the importance of this issue.
Right now, Jay Inslee’s plan is far more detailed on the areas it covers, then that of Beto O’Rourke. Meanwhile, O’Rourke’s plan is far broader and pays more attention to the social and wider environmental impact of dealing with climate change. Over time, it is likely that Inslee’s plan will grow wider, O’Rourke’s deeper. And everyone will win. Again.
One other winner: the Green New Deal. Whether it ever gets a single vote in Congress, it’s clear from the responses that the GND is driving candidates to address this issue in areas that go beyond the comfortable talking points.