Burdened by what might be.
E&E News (7/22/24) reports: "Vice President Kamala Harris has a more progressive energy record than President Joe Biden, but it’s unclear how that will play with voters if she secures the Democratic presidential nomination. Biden ended his reelection bid Sunday after increasing pressure from Democrats following his widely panned debate performance. His endorsement of Harris makes her the frontrunner for his replacement — but uncertainty reigns as Democrats scramble to organize a new 2024 ticket ahead of the party’s convention on Aug. 19-22 in Chicago. Some environmentalists are already putting their weight behind Harris, who they expect would largely continue Biden’s effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions as the effects of climate change increasingly ravage the globe... 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 — and Republicans often use the phrase as shorthand for policies they say attack fossil fuels. 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."
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"There is no real possibility that any of Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon or Apple can operate its business without large-scale carbon emissions, at least until there has been a massive build-out of nuclear power that as of now has not even gotten started. Likely these reports pledging adherence to the carbon neutrality creed are just so many words intended to buy time until the whole climate change mania blows over. When that happens, all these programs will be quietly scrapped. Along the same lines, note this piece from the New York Post today, reporting that Microsoft has just quietly scrapped its DEI program.
– Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian
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