Republicans Push ‘Innovation’ As Climate Change Solution
GOP lawmakers are increasingly turning to a new refrain for their position on climate change, calling for “innovation” as the policy solution.
Many Republicans have seemingly settled on innovation as their primary position to counter progressive Democrats who have grown louder in their calls for a Green New Deal, with its emphasis on renewable electricity, and as the United Nations and federal government issue reports saying time is running out to dramatically cut emissions.
Endorsing innovation has very few obvious political downsides for the GOP. It’s not controversial and helps Republicans paint a contrast with Democratic ideas they argue are controversial and expensive.
But critics say Republicans are being disingenuous and using innovation to mask their opposition to more aggressive climate change policies. Those critics say innovation alone isn’t sufficient to cut greenhouse gas emissions to the level that scientists say is necessary.
“What you’re hearing from Republicans is an acknowledgement that pollution and human activity have a negative effect on the environment. But they don’t want to get backed into a corner on specifics,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “They recognize their electorate are concerned about it, but the Democrats have not presented a realistic solution that does not hurt jobs and economic growth.”
The GOP sees climate change as a niche issue, O’Connell said, so any policy they support only needs to please a small portion of voters.
Republicans Are Slowly Warming to Climate Change—Is it Already Too Late?
As Hurricane Florence took hold of the Carolinas in mid-September, partisan talk swirled like the winds.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blamed the Trump administration for listening to “naysayers” who didn't want to switch to clean energy. Fossil fuels, she told reporters, absolutely contributed to the severity of the hurricane: “This is something that we have to look at in a big way, and it’s not served by denial of the facts.”
Former Vice President Al Gore weighed in from a climate conference in San Francisco. “Every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation, and we’ve got to connect the dots between the cause and the effect,” he said. “Some people evidently can still deny the reality [of climate change]—it’s a little bit harder to deny the 3,000 deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria last year.”
Rush Limbaugh used his radio show to fight back against what he called fearmongering. “This is made to order for the climate change–global warming crowd,” he said. “Hurricanes and hurricane forecasting is like much else that the left has gotten its hands on, and they politicize these things.”
He’s right, at any rate, that the topic is deeply politicized. A recent Gallup poll showed a gaping partisan divide on environmental policy: 69 percent of Republicans said they were satisfied with the current state of the environment, while 67 percent of Democrats said they were dissatisfied.
All of this feeds a self-perpetuating narrative that Americans’ views on climate change are split straight down the aisle—and are irreconcilable.
“You’ve got the Democrats who run out there and blame a specific weather event on climate change, and then you have someone like Republican Senator Jim Inhofe who will throw a snowball in the Senate to prove climate change isn’t real,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and former McCain-Palin presidential campaign adviser. “Both sides call up the carnival barkers, and nothing gets done.”
But Democrats and Republicans have more in common than they might think.
The problem, said GOP strategist O’Connell, was that in solidly red states a lot of jobs relied on the energy industry. Republicans thought they couldn't be re-elected if they told their constituents, “Let’s kill your jobs,” he said.
Trump Stops Short Of Killing Climate Rule. Here's His Pitch
"Did you see what I did to that? Boom, gone."
That's what President Trump said about former President Obama's Clean Power Plan last September at a rally in Huntsville, Ala.
Almost a year later, that rule still isn't officially dead — the proposal to repeal it hasn't been finalized. And the administration is expected to roll out its own version today, putting Trump in position to become the first president to enact greenhouse gas limits for power plants after Obama's rule was stalled in court. Trump is likely to tout his approach tonight at a rally in Charleston, W.Va.
So how will a president who has called climate change a hoax brag to his base about likely becoming the first commander in chief to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants?
His likely pitch: It's better than Obama's rule.
There's simply too much nuance for the average voter to swallow, said Frank Maisano, senior principal at Bracewell LLP. Yes, Trump could go down to West Virginia and say what's true of the market — natural gas is cheap and abundant, renewables are becoming more affordable, and coal will still be around a while longer, Maisano said. He added that Trump could also say what the administration believes to be true of policy — the Obama Clean Power Plan was illegal and reached too far into how states manage their electricity system.
Rather, the message should be one of jobs and economics, said Ford O'Connell, a GOP strategist and Trump backer. He said it won't matter that some sort of regulation will survive when the political alternative is Democrats being "hell-bent" on regulating and potentially ditching fossil fuels altogether, O'Connell said.
"President Trump should frame this move as an effort to unleash America's energy potential and to create more American jobs," he said in an email. "Strengthening the U.S. economy was Trump's chief campaign promise and on this front he is delivering."
John Kerry Expected To Turn Up Heat
Expect a frustrated John Kerry to use the podium at an upcoming climate summit in Boston to go “hog wild” on Donald Trump after the president dismantled his major accomplishments as secretary of state, political observers say.
Kerry will speak at an International Mayors Climate Summit at Boston University in June that is expected to draw officials from Chinese cities, Boston officials said. A similar gathering between U.S. and Chinese officials had been planned for last year, but was canceled after Trump’s State Department withdrew sponsorship, Mayor Martin J. Walsh said at the time.
That conference was canceled around the same time Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accord, a worldwide agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that was a large focus of Kerry’s efforts as former President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. And with Trump also pulling out of Iran nuclear deal — another key issue for Kerry — the former secretary of state will likely lash out, politicos said.
“It’s very likely he’s going to use the spotlight to attack President Trump. He has an ax to grind with Trump and is trying to preserve his legacy as secretary of state,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “He really only has two feathers in his cap: the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, which Trump both torpedoed.
“He has a safe space to go hog wild on the president if he chooses to,” O’Connell added.
Trump Is Making Deals, But One On Climate Is Unlikely
President Trump has made himself clear on climate change: He doesn't believe humans have much, if anything, to do with it. No number of hurricanes appears able to alter that.
He's been just as fixed on other issues, like immigration, before making a sudden course change. The question grappled with by some observers is whether Trump could be coaxed into ditching his view that warming is a hoax, for a political payday.
Most doubt it.
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have renewed interest in Trump's views on climbing temperatures. The president has toured the devastation in Texas and Florida, meeting victims along the way. While his administration has said discussing climate change would be insensitive in the recovery period, he has nonetheless faced questions about it (Climatewire, Sept. 12).
"I don't think he thinks twice about it because he doesn't see it as something that people think about on a daily basis, much less people who are getting through a hurricane," said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist who backed Trump in the campaign. "He sees it as not a good use of his time. That's why he ignores it."
Paris Exit Highlights Feud Between Kushner, Bannon
President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord has intensified the spotlight on the White House rivalry between chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, with one cable commentator proclaiming the former Breitbart chairman is now the de facto commander in chief.
Bannon had been pushing the president hard to exit the pact, while Kushner reportedly lobbied Trump to stay. A beaming Bannon took a victory lap during Trump’s announcement in the Rose Garden Thursday, while fellow top adviser Kushner was nowhere to be found.
Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told the Herald that Trump enjoys rivalries among his staffers and that who’s up and who’s down any given week often changes based on the news cycle.
“He absolutely wants his key staffers to compete and he feels when that occurs he gets the best product,” said O’Connell. “Sometimes they don’t necessarily shake it off and go back to their corner. Sometimes there are grudges that are held.”
'Red Meat To The Base': Trump Scores Points With Supporters By Rejecting Climate Deal
Had President Donald Trump decided to keep the U.S. in the Paris climate accord, it would have been a slap in the face to the very people who put him in office, says Republican strategist Ford O'Connell.
Instead, standing in the White House Rose Garden on a hot, humid Washington day, the president said the U.S. was "getting out." And he delivered the line that was music to the ears of his political base: "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."
"This got him some political capital, and it got him political capital with the folks who put him over the top," O'Connell said.
Trump's decision sparked a flurry of condemnation from world leaders, including Canada's Justin Trudeau, as well as from Democrats and environmental groups. Many business leaders, too, including oil giants like Exxon and coal manufacturers, had urged the president to not withdraw from the accord.
But to those in his base, the decision will reap some political rewards, O'Connell said.
Those are the voters in the industrial Midwest, many of them lifelong Democrats, who in the past election shifted to Trump, believing he may be able to stem the hollowing-out of manufacturing jobs in their region.
And to the blue collar workers in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, a global deal calling on the U.S. to lower CO2 emissions is a job killer.
"He made the right move politically because he said he was going to put America first, that means including those folks in the equation, in coal country in the industrial Midwest," O'Connell said. "And he put his money where his mouth was."
Trump Nominees Dodge 'Climate Denier' Charge
President Trump’s Cabinet nominees have delivered a similar refrain on climate change that could head off criticisms of the administration on the issue.
At Senate confirmation hearings in recent days, the nominees have all said that the climate is changing, and that human activity is a factor. But they say that the extent of human influence is up for study and debate, as is the discussion of what policy prescriptions might be required.
The new refrain makes it difficult for environmentalists and Democrats to label Trump’s staffers “climate deniers,” a term they’ve used to attack politicians skeptical of climate science.
It also leaves the Trump administration with plenty of room to maneuver. None of the nominees have endorsed any specific climate policies, and Trump is still expected to reverse most of Obama’s climate agenda.
“I think it’s extremely smart, and it denies the ‘denier’ label,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who worked on Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign.
“It’s very hard for the left to mount opposition to certain policies if you continue to say, ‘we don’t think it’s a hoax,’ ” he continued.
“It comes off as well-thought-out, because it takes some of the momentum out of the climate change folks, but also, it doesn’t lock you into any specific position as an administration.”
Republicans Split On Attacking Climate Science
The Republican Party is divided over whether to attack the science of climate change when opposing liberal policies.
Many of the most vocal Republicans say they have significant problems with the scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that greenhouse gas emissions from human activity is the main cause. The skeptics include presidential hopefuls Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Rep. Lamar Smith (Texas), both chairmen of committees overseeing environmental issues.
But others in the GOP aren’t interested in litigating the science. They say it’s more important — and far easier — to show that Democratic climate proposals would be disastrous to the economy and kill jobs.
The split comes as more and more voters, particularly young people and minorities, say in opinion polls that they believe climate change is real and want action to fight it.
Democrats have lined up firmly behind that view, with President Obama set to implement carbon dioxide limits for power plants that amount to the most significant action yet by the federal government to fight climate change.
Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist, said rejecting climate science can be a dangerous game for Republicans, depending on their goals.
“In Congress, because you know your district, if you want to stay all-out skeptical, that’s fine,” he said. “But if you’re in a swing district, or if you’re running for president, you’re far better off talking about it in terms of its relationship to jobs and the economy.”
O’Connell said Democrats are nearly certain to make climate change an issue in the presidential race, something the GOP nominee will have to be prepared for.
“The only person who’s going to really have to in any way plausibly be concerned about solutions is whoever the Republican nominee is, because that’s something that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats want to make an issue,” he said.
A Paul Ryan-Led House Unlikely To Shift Much On Climate Issues
After a turbulent five-week search, the House is expected to elect Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as speaker this week. The change in leadership, which comes amid political gridlock and a colorful presidential campaign, doesn't bode well for climate action on Capitol Hill, environmental and political experts said.
Ryan will replace Republican Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, who has served as speaker for the past five years. Boehner announced his retirement from Congress last month after 25 years in office. Under Boehner's leadership, Congress has tried to stymie federal climate change action in recent years, from slashing funding for environmental regulations and science through appropriations bills to blocking the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
A Ryan-led House likely won't be much better, experts told InsideClimate News.
And that's if the House tackles climate change at all in the next couple of years, said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist who worked on John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. Ryan's first priorities in office will be the debt ceiling, the Highway Trust Fund and the 2016 budget, O'Connell said. By next spring, Washington will be captive to the presidential election.
"Right now Congress is just trying clean its slate," O'Connell said. "There's just no room on the agenda for climate change, even if both sides were in agreement over it."
