With Kamala Harris being the likely nominee for U.S. President for the Democrats, it is important to look back at her track record on environmental issues.
In her current role as VP in the Biden-Harris Administration, as well as in her previous positions as a Senator and Attorney General for the State of California, she has been a climate justice champion for nearly two decades.
As Attorney, Harris obtained $50 million in settlements from lawsuits against Chevron, B.P., ConocoPhillips, and other oil companies. She also led an investigation into Exxon Mobil’s history of misleading Americans about the climate crisis.
Harris also joined a lawsuit against Southern California Gas Co. over the 2015 Aliso Canyon methane leak and sued Pacific Gas & Electric over the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion.
In 2017, she also signed a letter against the expansion of offshore drilling off the California coast because the expansion would boost the profits of oil companies.
In 2019, as a Senator of California, Harris wrote and supported legislation such as the Clean School Bus Act of 2019, which established a grant program to replace diesel school buses with electric buses.
She also created the Water Justice Act of 2019, which helped ensure the safety and sustainability of the nation’s water, and championed lead pipe replacement, wildfire smoke research, sea level rise, zero-emission vehicles, PFAS contamination, and air quality standards.
Since 2020, as a part of the Biden-Harris Administration, she has taken more action on climate change than any other presidency.
One achievement is signing the Inflation Reduction Act, (IRA) – the biggest climate spending law in U.S. history, which has the potential to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions up to 42 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. In 2021, the U.S. government also rejoined the Paris Agreement.
In 2022, Harris helped implement the Administration’s Justice40 initiative, which aims to direct 40 percent of the profits from certain federal investments in climate, energy, and housing to marginalized, underserved, and overburdened communities by pollution.
This initiative is a key part of the Administration’s commitment to environmental justice and aims to ensure that all communities, particularly those most affected by pollution, benefit from the transition to a clean energy economy.
Vice President Harris plans to continue her success during her upcoming candidacy, especially since President Biden will leave office with a portion of his proposed climate agenda unpassed. The US is still projected to miss his administration’s goal of reducing emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030.
Former President Donald Trump has vowed to undo many of the environmental policies Biden accomplished if he becomes President, while Project 2025 threatens to undo the progress made by the Biden-Harris Administration and take us right back to where we started.
We cannot afford to regress. As Kamala Harris rightly says, “We need to do more.”
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