U.S. Democratic Platform Adopts More Aggressive Climate Change Agenda

July 12, 2016 – Bernie Sanders in endorsing Hillary Clinton today as the Democratic nominee for U.S. President has won her support for a more aggressive climate change agenda that supersedes even the actions by President Obama to date. Sanders’ positions on climate change have almost all been adopted by the Party in the run up to the National Convention. In a press release issued July 9th Sanders states, “As a result of this plan natural gas is no longer regarded as a bridge to the future. The future of America’s energy system now clearly belongs to sun and wind power.”

Here are the amendments to the Democratic Party’s platform addressing the environment:

…..Democrats are committed to closing the Halliburton loophole [referring to the exemption given companies in 2005 legislation that allowed them not to disclose the chemicals they used during hydraulic fracturing] that stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate hydraulic fracturing, and ensuring tough safeguards are in place, including Safe Drinking Water provisions, to protect local water supplies. We believe hydraulic fracturing should not take place where states and local communities oppose it. We will reduce methane emissions from all oil and gas production and transportation by at least 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2025 through common-sense standards for both new and existing sources and by repairing and replacing thousands of miles of leaky pipes. This will both protect our climate and create thousands of good-paying jobs.

…..Democrats believe that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases should be priced to reflect their negative externalities, and to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy and help meet our climate goals. Democrats believe that climate change is too important to wait for climate deniers and defeatists in Congress to start listening to science, and support using every tool available to reduce emissions now.

…..We will streamline federal permits to accelerate the construction of new transmission lines to get low-cost renewable energy to market, and incentivize wind, solar and other renewable energy over the development of new natural gas power plants.

…..We support President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. As we continue working to reduce carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gas emissions, we must ensure federal actions don’t “significantly exacerbate” global warming. We support a comprehensive approach that insures all federal decisions going forward contribute to solving, not significantly exacerbating climate change.

…..Democrats believe that our commitment to meeting the climate challenge must also be reflected in the infrastructure investments we make. We need to make our existing infrastructure safer and cleaner and build the new infrastructure necessary to power our clean energy future. To create good-paying middle class jobs that can’t be outsourced, Democrats support high labor standards in clean energy infrastructure, and the right to form or join a union, whether in renewable power or advanced vehicle manufacturing. During the clean energy transition, we will insure landowners, communities of color and tribal nations are at the table.

The key changes in the language include support for implementing carbon pricing, something that Hillary Clinton had avoided stating in articulating her climate change action plans.  And the other significant change as described in Sanders’ comment above is the end of the Obama bridging strategy to use natural gas after coal and before renewables. It has been this policy that to date has allowed the United States to reduce its overall carbon emissions. But now the Democrats intend to forego it and push ahead with renewables principally.