• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires May 29, 2023
Hamilton Plans Canada’s First Heat Bylaw for Rental Housing May 29, 2023
UK Traffic Calming Strategy Produces Solid Results, Manufactured Anxiety May 29, 2023
Community Wind Farm Earns Support, Generates Income in German Village May 29, 2023
‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair May 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Biden, Sanders Climate Policies Come Into Focus as Primary Field Narrows

March 6, 2020
Reading time: 4 minutes

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

20
SHARES
 

With the race for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination narrowing to two main candidates, the New York Times and Foreign Policy magazine are each taking a look at what former U.S. vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders have been saying about climate and energy.

The Times has Biden calling for 100% carbon-free energy and net-zero emissions by 2050, with a plan his campaign has costed at US$1.7 trillion. Sanders (I-VT) is promising all-renewable electricity and transportation sectors by 2030, with a full fossil fuel phaseout by 2050, at a cost of $16.3 trillion. “Both candidates have outlined various measures that call for greater taxes and unspecified new fees on corporations, as well as eliminating fossil fuel subsidies.”

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

Both candidates’ plans “focus heavily on new regulations that would not require congressional approval, as well as spending federal dollars to incentivize the deployment of clean energy across the economy,” the paper adds. “Neither calls for a tax on carbon emissions.” Sanders would seek a $2-trillion congressional authorization for a public plan to manage and distribute renewable grid electricity.

While projecting new employment attributable to a climate strategy can be a “tricky business”, the Times says Sanders’ plan would create an estimated 20 million jobs, Biden’s 10 million.

As for the path to a carbon-free future, Sanders has labelled geoengineering, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and nuclear generation “false solutions”, while Biden would consider “all low- and zero-carbon technologies” including nuclear and carbon capture, while making no mention of geoengineering in his platform. Sanders favours a national ban on fracking and a natural gas plant phaseout, and while Biden’s campaign hasn’t explicitly mentioned either, “he has said on the campaign trail that he favors enhanced regulations on natural gas extraction and fracking”.

On that emerging  issue, Foreign Policy says the language from the Democratic frontrunners is starting to make markets “jittery”, with Biden, Sanders, and now-departed candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) all proposing “vigorous federal action to limit or even roll back production of oil and natural gas. Viewing the increased production of fossil fuels as being at odds with the fight against climate change, all three have called for production limits ranging from the more modest, like Biden’s plan to ban Arctic oil drilling and boost regulations on fracking, to the more aggressive, like that of Sanders and Warren, who both back a ban on fracking and an end to fossil fuel leases on federal land.”

The new attitude from Democrats, even Biden, “ is a stark departure from the middle-of-the-road energy policies of the Obama administration—which at the time Republicans attacked as too radical,” the publication adds.

“It is jaw-dropping to see how far these candidates have shifted from Obama’s all-of-the-above approach to energy,” said Rapidan Energy Group founder and president Bob McNally. He’s been particularly surprised to see gas “vilified in most Democratic energy proposals”, given its past profile as a cleaner-burning fossil fuel that has displaced coal-fired power generation.

“If oil is Nazi Germany, gas is Fascist Italy—it’s not quite as bad as Hitler, but it’s in league with the enemy,” he told Foreign Policy. “If a Democrat wins, we’re going to see a Tet Offensive against the oil and gas industry the likes of which we’ve never seen before,” so that fossils are now gearing up for tougher scrutiny and regulatory oversight.

Leading up to the 14-state Super Tuesday primary earlier this week, Kevin Book, co-founder and managing director of energy consultancy ClearView Energy Partners, said oil and gas investors had been blasé about Democrats’ fossil policies. But “I think the market should start to price things in on Wednesday,” he said, speaking before the primary results had played out. “None of the Democrats, from a [fossil] energy production point of view, are moderate.”

He added that tilt is reinforced by electoral math. “Since the overwhelming majority of U.S. oil and gas production is concentrated in states that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and will almost certainly vote Republican again, there is little on the electoral map for aggressive Democrats to lose,” Foreign Policy writes, citing Book, “though such policies could make Pennsylvania an even tougher state for Democrats to win.”

But 350 Action Executive Director May Boeve, whose organization double-endorsed Sanders and Warren Monday, pointed to the immediate urgency of getting the right outcome in November. “This election takes place during a crucial inflection point for climate action,” she said. “We need a president who will fight against the fossil fuel industry that is standing in the way of progress.”

“One thing that will be almost impossible for any Democratic president to do is ban fracking outright,” Foreign Policy says, unless Democrats sweep the U.S. Senate as well as the House and adopt a measure that can survive the legal challenges that would inevitably follow. “But when it comes to restrictive energy policies, any future Democratic president still has lots of ways to limit U.S. oil and gas production,” beginning with production on federal lands.

“You can’t ban fracking without Congress,” agreed former Obama energy and climate advisor Jason Bordoff, now the founding director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “But you can throw a lot of sand in the gears with regulations that raise costs.”



in Arctic & Antarctica, CCS & Negative Emissions, Community Climate Finance, Ending Emissions, Energy Politics, Energy Subsidies, Jobs & Training, Nuclear, Oil & Gas, Shale & Fracking, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Martin Davis/Facebook
Carbon Levels & Measurement

13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires

May 29, 2023
2
Jörg Möller/Pixabay
Cities & Communities

UK Traffic Calming Strategy Produces Solid Results, Manufactured Anxiety

May 29, 2023
3
kpgolfpro/Pixabay
Community Climate Finance

Community Wind Farm Earns Support, Generates Income in German Village

May 29, 2023
8

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Neal Alderson/Twitter

Out-of-Control Wildfire Burns Homes, Forces Evacuations Outside Halifax

May 29, 2023
76
pixabay

Anti-Mob Laws to Prosecute Fossils, Kudos for Calgary, 113M Climate Refugees, Orcas Fight Back, and a Climate Dictionary

May 24, 2023
134
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
274
University of Oxford Press Office/flickr

PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell

May 23, 2023
435
Arctic Circle/flickr

‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair

May 23, 2023
399
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
3.7k

Recent Posts

Martin Davis/Facebook

13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires

May 29, 2023
2
York Region/flickr

Hamilton Plans Canada’s First Heat Bylaw for Rental Housing

May 29, 2023
3
Jörg Möller/Pixabay

UK Traffic Calming Strategy Produces Solid Results, Manufactured Anxiety

May 29, 2023
3

Waste Heat from Quebec Data Centre to Grow 80,000 Tonnes of Veggies Per Year

May 29, 2023
7
kpgolfpro/Pixabay

Community Wind Farm Earns Support, Generates Income in German Village

May 29, 2023
8
Pexels/pixabay

Engineers Replace Sand in Concrete with Disposable Diapers

May 29, 2023
7
Next Post
Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons

Uber, Lyft Emerge as Massive Emitters, But Policy Changes Could Help

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}