1:12 PM 05/10/2019 | Energy
Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
- Conservatives are skeptical of former Vice President Joe Biden seeking a “middle ground” on climate change policy.
- Many Democratic 2020 hopefuls endorsed the Green New Deal championed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
- Biden has not endorsed the Green New Deal, which is opposed by labor unions the former vice president is trying to court.
Former Vice President Joe Biden reportedly brought on former Obama advisers to find a “middle ground” on global warming, but conservatives see it as a reboot of the former president’s policies.
“Biden is surrounding himself with the very people President Obama relied on to strangle the economy by driving the fossil fuel industry out of business,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Heather Zichal, a climate adviser to former President Barack Obama, and an unnamed former Energy Department official joined Biden’s presidential campaign, Reuters reported Friday. Biden is looking to formulate a “middle ground” on climate policy that could pick up where Obama left off.
Biden could reinstate Obama-era energy and environment policies, including staying in the Paris climate accord, Zichal said. Biden’s aim is to appease far-left environmentalists and working class, moderate Democrats, many of whom voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.
“He will build a new climate coalition,” Zichal told Reuters. “Unions and environmentalists are searching for common ground. We can’t drive a common agenda unless we work together.”
However, labor unions representing millions of workers came out against the Green New Deal. Many environmentalists have endorsed the Green New Deal, which is championed by New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Zichal told Reuters she’s also seeking advice from former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Frank Verrastro. Moniz has been skeptical of the Green New Deal but still favors policies to decarbonize energy.
Conservatives see Biden’s new advisers as a sign that, if elected, his actual environmental policies will be far-reaching. (RELATED: Ocasio-Cortez Inexplicably Claims Victory In The Climate Change Debate)
“With Heather Zichal as his climate adviser, it looks like he is going to recycle the disastrous climate and energy policies of the Obama administration,” Myron Ebell, the director of energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told TheDCNF.
“These are the policies designed to raise energy prices for consumers that voters rejected and that the Supreme Court was probably going to overturn as illegal,” said Ebell, who served on the Trump transition team.
“If Biden’s climate agenda is anything like Obama’s there’s nothing middle ground about it,” Pyle said.
Biden does have one advantage, Pyle added — to most voters anything less than the Green New Deal looks moderate by comparison.
“It’s easy to position yourself as in the middle ground on this issue when everyone else in the field supports the Green New Deal,” Pyle said.
So far, 2020 Democratic hopefuls have generally lurched leftward to appease hardcore liberals who want aggressive, Green New Deal-like plans to fight global warming. Biden has been silent on the Green New Deal, and, in fact, hasn’t talked about climate change much at all.
The Sunrise Movement, a youth-based environmental group, already came out swinging against Biden’s attempt to moderate his stance on global warming, calling it a “death sentence to our generation.”
A 'middle ground' policy that's supportive of more fossil fuel development is a death sentence for our generation and the millions of people on the frontlines of the climate crisis.https://t.co/tyqci7SEEQ
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) May 10, 2019
“Vice President Biden suffers from the same problem as Secretary Moniz, moderate Democrats, and some Republicans,” Republican strategist Michael McKenna told TheDCNF. “You can’t call climate change, as in his words, an existential threat and then propose things that will have exceedingly minimal effects on the problem.”
“People are pretty sure you’re either lying about the scope of the problem or lying about the efficacy of the proposed solutions or both,” McKenna said.
https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1125856728090861570
Yep, sums up the whole CAGW movement, concisely.
It may or may not be true. It may or may not be relevant. Let’s compromise.
Which is exactly why such proposed solutions to a non-problem must be ignored, just as Trump is doing. Ignore the Climate Change shrieking. Some call it passive-aggressive indifference. I call it the best policy choice.
Even if everything the Left says they want done on climate change were done, it would never be enough. That is the mentality of Progressives, nothing is ever enough. When their policies fail, as they always do, in their minds it wasn’t becasue the policy was wrong, it was becasue it didn’t go far enough.
This is general attitude of socialists when it is pointed out that all various forms of socialist experiments have failed (Venezuela, USSR, Cuba. They simply respond it wasn’t true socialism. There is no reaching someone like that.
Agree. It is not “passive-aggressive indifference”. It is genuinely the best policy – until we can very clearly and scientifically observe that CO2 does indeed make global climate hotter. I wonder when the Democrats will come to realise that. They may well win the presidency if only Biden decides to do nothing for the time being.
If the compromise means the reinstatement of Paris, no pipelines, a carbon tax, frac ban, cap and trade scams, and so forth …then its no compromise at all. Does anybody really think these are not just for starters with these people? They make absurd demands then they get what they really wanted for starters, their opponents thinking they are just throwing them a bone to be nice. Then they start more demands again.
Biden is not the sharpest tool in shed when it comes to formulating policy. He’s an old school you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours kind of politician. But in this case there are no favors to be traded. So it’s my guess that he comes out with something that clearly ticks off both sides of his “hoped for” coalition.
Be careful, don’t let Biden scratch the back of your wives or daughters.
Don’t worry, politicians never scratch first. 😉
This documentary predicted everything that you are seeing happen today. Everything is textbook left wing politics.
This is a test of the Embed Function:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QowL2BiGK7o&w=560&h=315%5D
Biden’s “middle ground” is somewhere between wacko and just plain wrong.
Yes, and between hair sniffing women and fondling young girls.
Yep, an existential threat. Mankind can’t handle the impacts of a few degrees warming above that of the Little Ice Age; a further speculated warming that will take a hundred years or more. Mankind has proven it cannot adapt. Yep.
The UN IPCC worst case shows impacts of a few % drop in projected GDP. Yep, an existential threat.
Is someone putting instant nut job potion in the world’s drinking water to explain this worldwide green idiocy or what else happened to terminate general sanity. Sigh!
Reality Check: I don’t know any Democrats except for AOC the nutter herself who *actually* went on record as *endorsing* the complete dismantlement of the air travel, beef and building industries. Not. One. What I DID see was a lot of craven hypocrites voting “present” lest the GND stick to them like last week’s gum!
“Sunrise Movement” is a tiny, ignorant, fringe loon “group” that didn’t exist before last week when they made a juvenile fuss in front of Congressional offices. Toolbrain youth only have the power we give them–and Nancy told them to get lost. Without The Guardian and fellow travelers, nobody would ever hear of these clowns. Remember, a FB page is really all you need today to be a “group.” The noise is happily supplied for free by a clickbait-hungry media.
Joe Biden is a lukewarm, over the Hill, reluctant candidate going through the motions like Hillary did. He’s running as the default candidate because the genuine rads like Bernie are scaring sane Dems off. Hey, they like their trust funds and 401k’s, too! Joe’s son is up to his yin-yang in some highly questionable deals in China, which whaddaya know, we happen to be embroiled presently in a “trade war” with. Guess who’s going to have mucho rolling baggage going into the primaries . . . plus the hair-sniffing memes are already cliche.
The world is going swimmingly under Trump. I think the Gnomes of Davos have told the Dems to throw the election; they seem to be doing so enthusiastically. But stand by for the entertainment . . . it should be YUUUUUUGE!!!! 😉
“Zichal told Reuters she’s also seeking advice from former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz ”
I’m not usually one for ad hom (except for those who deserve it), but Moniz is one of the creepiest dudes I’ve ever seen.
“Biden is surrounding himself with the very people President Obama relied on to strangle the economy by driving the fossil fuel industry out of business,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.”
Good thing we have Trump to re-open all of those coal plants that Obama shut down.
Oh, wait..
(Reuters) – More U.S. coal-fired power plants were shut in President Donald Trump’s first two years than were retired in the whole of Barack Obama’s first term, despite the Republican’s efforts to prop up the industry to keep a campaign promise to coal-mining states.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-coal/president-trump-cant-stop-u-s-coal-plants-from-retiring-idUSKCN1P80BY
Natural gas will continue to displace coal in the U.S. and that’s why it leads the world in CO2 emissions reduction. Nevertheless, those new coal plants in Asia more than make up for it.
You can’t appease fanatics. He’s either all in or he’s out. There is no middle ground with leftists, regardless of the topic.
..and every time we give in a little…and they win a little…until there’s nothing left
Quite a few people consider socialism to be the “middle ground” between full blown communism and anything that isn’t full blown socialism.
“to most voters anything less than the Green New Deal looks moderate by comparison.”
That’s the purpose the wackos have always played for the left. It makes anyone else seem sane, and therefore acceptable, by comparison.
Biden is barely coherent during many of his recent talks.
The longer Biden polls well among Democrats, the worse it will be for them in 2020.
By next Fall, the race will start to get very nasty, considering how many are in it and that more are announcing even now.
The will bloody each other unmercifully long before the Primary elections even start.
Running for President is grueling, and tired people make mistakes.
I think he will be cooked before this year’s Christmas dinner.
Biden going to get chewed up and spit out by the whack-job cultural Marxists taking over the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party opened up the asylum to its ranks, and it has now consumed them. Biden won’t get past March 2020 primaries, as his Democratic opponents will turn their bands of freak-show cultists loose on him at rallies.
Joel O’Bryan: “[…] his Democratic opponents will turn their bands of freak-show cultists loose on him at rallies.”
If a pair of freak-show cultists show up at a Biden Rally they will outnumber the Biden supporters two to one.
I think Biden himself has prepared the ground well for failure:
https://joebiden.info/
How valuable is Joe Biden? Even Bin Laden warned against targeting him.
Biden is a known Loonie.
don’t be fooled…too many people are
what they call “middle ground”….is the same old lunge to the left
their middle ground…is extreme left to conservatives…and the keep getting away with it
…chipping chipping
The “middle ground” is a simply a ploy to get votes from those who are on the fence with climate change.
These people are really REALLY stupid if they think that we are too stupid to realize this…
In thee unlikely event that the US public elected him, will he then order the US military to force the so called 3 rd world to stop doing what they are presently doing, like brining fossil fuel ?
There is no “” Middle way”” .
So do we have a problem ? in which case its a 3 rd world war
situation, or we do not have a problem. If the latter than Trump or
someone like him is needed.
MJE VK5ELL
“like brining fossil fuel”
Sounds salty.
” Biden taking ‘middle ground’ on global warming.”
Actually that would make perfect sense to someone who considers AOC an immature wacko on one side, and anyone who “denies” the so called “existential” threat on the other. That population includes most adult Democrats.
Joe is trying to stake out a reasonable position for the Primaries; he knows Conservatives are not going to vote for him in the General Election.
Worry!!
We’re only in this mess because the right have spent the last hundred years ‘compromising’ with the left, where the ‘compromise’ is always to take another step toward whatever the left are demanding. These days, more and more conservatives are ‘woke’ and understand that route leads to complete destruction.
Biden still seems to think he’s living in the 90s, when the right would roll over for any chance to appear ‘nice’ by ‘compromising’
Even if humans were the main cause of warming (which I do not believe), and even if the US eviscerated itself economically and half the population (or more died) due to the starvation, the rest of the world will keep on growing. Even under these crazy assumptions, we’d likely have zero impact.
By the way, creating all the “renewable” stuff would require a LOT of new carbon emissions
It is sad to say politics is so low on most peoples list of interests, when it comes to election time they end up voting for what their friends are voting for or for someone they think looks nice.
The other option people look to is None of the Above candidate.
Only at the second term election does the performance of one of the candidates i.e. incumbent come into play.
The AOC’s, Sanders, Pelosi’s and others who seek the limelight, by peddling nonsense that captures the media’s attention, may get air time, but they won’t get the voters support.
For two years the US establishment has waged war on Donald Trump and have failed to win. The public have come to accept his idiosyncrasies rather than condemn them, because overall he is making their lives better.
He will be the first President in recent history that has delivered on his election promises.
The media will continue to run hate campaigns against him, the COGS will continue to be offended by everything and continue to fail to capture mainstream adult support though the kids seem convinced because? Well because, teacher told them….
If Biden gets to the runoff it will be fun to watch if nothing else.
Where’s James Holdren in all of this?
Creepy Uncle Joe has big Ukraine and China problems.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-13/not-just-ukraine-biden-may-have-serious-china-problem-schweizer-exposes-hunters-1bn
Democrats sat Biden/Ukraine scandal is off limits…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-12/schiff-says-biden-ukraine-scandal-should-be-limits
Democrats sat Biden/Ukraine scandal is off limits…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-12/schiff-says-biden-ukraine-scandal-should-be-limits
Biden pushes luck hitting up on bikers old lady…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-03/nyt-creepy-joe-biden-may-be-sunk-2020-enemies-crank-out-political-ad-using
Look at their faces in the pix!
Biden caught with hand in cookie jar.
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/10/16/biden_fibbed_green_cronyism_is_alive_and_well_99939.html