LOS ANGELES — Vice President Kamala Harris’ emergence as the leading Democratic presidential contender has garnered a renewed sense of optimism among environmentalists who say she offers a strong track record of climate and clean energy policies and would continue to advance that work in the White House.
“I’m ecstatic — I couldn’t be more thrilled,” Leah Stokes, an associate professor of climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said this week.
“Kamala Harris is a climate and environmental justice champion, and she has been for over two decades,” Stokes said. “We have a real shot to not just win the White House and have a climate president again, but also to secure strong majorities in the House and the Senate and have an opportunity to pass more climate legislation — which is what we need to do if we want to be on track to meet the targets that scientists say are necessary.”
Harris, a Californian who has previously described climate change as an “ existential threat “ that must be treated with a sense of urgency, has prioritized investments in clean energy jobs, air and water protections, fossil fuel accountability, climate action and environmental justice, Stokes and others said in the wake of Sunday’s announcement that President Joe Biden was withdrawing from the race.
“We’ve endorsed her every step of the way in her political career, and for good reason, because she has led on climate justice and climate action in every role,” said Mary Creasman, chief executive of the nonprofit group California Environmental Voters.
Harris’ environmental platform stands in stark contrast to that of Republican nominee Donald Trump, whose previous climate record includes rolling back more than 100 climate regulations and appointing climate change deniers to senior posts in the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior.
Project 2025, touted as a road map for a Republican administration, outlines plans to expand oil and gas drilling, dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its offices — including the National Weather Service — and other steps that would address the Biden administration’s “radical climate policy” and “unprovoked war on fossil fuels,” according to the document.
Environmental experts and advocates say Harris offers a promising antidote to such plans. The vice president played a key role in securing the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, often credited as the biggest investment in climate action in U.S. history, and a Harris presidency is likely to see the effort continue.
“We have a climate champion in the White House in President Biden, and we’re going to have one in Vice President Kamala Harris,” said Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, a strategic communications organization.
The group pointed to a long list of environmental achievements that span Harris’ career as vice president, U.S. senator and California attorney general.
As vice president, Harris has met with more than 100 world leaders on climate issues and has championed the goal of halving climate pollution by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. She led the administration’s Action Plan on Global Water Security, which seeks to increase international access to clean, safe drinking water, and cast the deciding vote to advance the landmark Inflation Reduction Act in the Senate.
What’s more, Harris helped implement the administration’s Justice40 initiative, which aims to funnel 40% of benefits from certain federal climate, energy and housing investments into communities that have been marginalized, underserved and overburdened by pollution.
“She has a long history of being a climate champ,” said Melinda Pierce, legislative director of the Sierra Club in Washington.
On top of supporting Biden’s policies, Harris has carved out her own profile by taking stances such as vocal support for ending fracking that have been more aggressive than Biden’s stances, Pierce said.
“There’s a lot left to do. And I think Kamala Harris gives folks new energy that under a Democratic trifecta, we can get it done on climate,” Pierce said.
Harris also delivered on climate policy in the U.S. Senate, where she represented California from 2017 to 2021, and as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017.
In the Senate, Harris authored and sponsored legislation on a wide range of climate issues, including the Clean School Bus Act of 2019, which established a grant program to replace diesel school buses with electric ones, and the Water Justice Act of 2019 to help ensure the safety and sustainability of the nation’s water supply.
Other legislative efforts included actions around lead pipe replacement, PFAs contamination, sea level rise,zero-emissions vehicles, wildfire smoke research and air quality standards.
Harris has said the president should hold fossil fuel companies accountable for misleading the public about climate change. In a 2019 interview with Mother Jones, she said: “Let’s get them not only in the pocket book, but let’s make sure there are severe and serious penalties for their behaviors.”
Indeed, she secured $ 50 million in settlements from lawsuits against Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and other oil companies during her tenure as attorney general, and led an investigation into Exxon Mobile’s history of misleading Americans on the climate crisis. In 2017, she signed a letter opposing the expansion of offshore drilling along the California coast, stating that the expansion would “line the pockets of oil companies.”
In fact, many of her efforts have been shaped by her experiences as a Californian, experts said. As attorney general, Harris joined a suit against Southern California Gas Co. over the Aliso Canyon methane leak of 2015 and sued Pacific Gas & Electric over the San Bruno gas pipeline explosion of 2010.
Stokes, of UCSB, noted that Harris is probably acutely aware of other instances of climate devastation in California, such as the deadly Camp fire in Paradise, the Montecito mudslide, severe droughts that affected farmers and water supplies, and dangerous flooding driven by extreme rainfall.
“These are massive impacts, and California really is on the front lines of the climate crisis,” Stokes said. “I’m sure she has seen that and it has made her want to act so that we don’t continue down this perilous path of burning fossil fuels.”
The possibility that there could be a major focus on holding fossil fuel companies accountable under Harris is “pretty exciting,” said Pierce, of the Sierra Club.
“President Biden was the strongest president on climate and environmental action, and we need four more years. And I have every confidence that a Harris administration would continue that progress,” Pierce said. “We can’t afford to go back. We have to defend our progress. We can’t let the fossil fuel interests run the henhouse again.”
If there are some differences with Biden, Harris has had “more of a focus on climate justice and environmental justice” and “protecting Californians against corporate polluters,” said Creasman, of California Environmental Voters.
But a second Donald Trump term, along with the political goals outlined in the Project 2025 document, would probably erode all progress made until now — including the nation’s bedrock laws that protect clean air and clean water, investments in clean energy, and the ability of California and other states to protect the environment through regulation, she said.
“The funding necessary to transition our economy and our infrastructure, to make communities resilient now and in the future, is at risk,” Creasman said. “The big progress that President Biden and Vice President Harris have made in the last four years … all of that is at risk.”
Among the actions that Project 2025 calls for is ending the 30×30 plan to conserve 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030; reducing the scope of the EPA; and expanding oil and gas lease sales. Lodes, of Climate Power, said Harris has a record of holding oil companies accountable while Trump “is busy making billion-dollar deals with Big Oil CEOs.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has taken more action on climate than any other administration in history — she’ll continue their bold legacy as the next president of the United States,” Lodes said.
Other experts took to social media to similarly champion Harris as a climate leader after Sunday’s announcement.
Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media and co-founder of the group 350.org, voiced hope that if Harris wins the presidency, she would make it a priority to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable.
“The fossil fuel industry has raked in massive profits for decades by lying about climate,” Henn said in a post on X. “We need a President who will make them pay.”
Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist and former presidential candidate, said that the contrast in the presidential race could not be clearer, and that the country “cannot lose the momentum” gained during the Biden-Harris administration.
In a post on X, Steyer praised Harris as the candidate who would lead the “climate innovation economy” and fight for a “cleaner, healthier planet.”
Mustafa Santiago Ali, executive vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, took to X to share a poem he wrote titled “Kamala Harris: A Dream Realized,” in which he recalled Black female activists, artists and leaders from Rosa Parks to Shirley Chisholm and declared that Harris will be “writing our new page” as the nation’s first Black female president.
Reached by phone Monday, Ali said Harris has “always been focused on helping our most vulnerable communities move from surviving to thriving.”
“She would continue to be transformational in helping us to address the impacts that are happening from environmental injustices that also lead to the climate crisis,” he said.
