Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s, D-Mass., promise this week to ban all new oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters on her first day in the Oval Office sets a new litmus test for Democrats running for president in 2020.
“Sen. Warren is setting an example of the kind of climate action we expect from candidates running for office,” said Thanu Yakupitiyage, spokesperson for 350 Action, the advocacy affiliate of 350.org, an environmental group. “We need bold solutions to tackle the climate crisis head-on, and a moratorium on new leases for fossil fuel drilling is precisely the kind of action to get us there.”
While the Democratic field has embraced the ambition of the left-wing Green New Deal platform, candidates had provided few specifics on policies they’d support to combat climate change until Warren released her public land agenda.
Addressing greenhouse gas emissions on public lands, environmentalists say, represents a significant piece of the puzzle to combating climate change. Nearly a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from energy production on public lands, the United States Geological Survey found last year.
“Each new fossil fuel lease locks in carbon pollution that our climate can’t afford,” said Taylor McKinnon, senior public lands manager at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. “We need to end the leasing programs to align public-lands policy with climate goals.”
McKinnon noted a study published last year that determined ending fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and waters would reduce carbon emissions by 280 million tons per year, a comparable reduction to other climate policies proposed by the Obama administration.
So far, however, few of the 18 declared Democratic candidates are rushing to endorse Warren’s proposal, although a handful of them have been vocal supporters of the “Keep It in the Ground” movement.
Just two candidates — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio — provided a response to inquiries from the Washington Examiner.
A spokesman for Inslee, who is running a single-issue campaign to address climate change, noted the candidate “expressed support” in a recent Twitter post for a “Keep It in the Ground” plan introduced in the Senate. “We must stop new fossil fuel leasing so we can build a clean energy future,” Inslee said in the March 24 tweet.
Ryan, a centrist representing a fossil fuel-dependent state, is noncommittal about Warren’s proposal. His spokeswoman Julia Krieger noted he is seeking “practical and effective solutions” to fighting climate change, while seeking to decarbonize the U.S. “as quickly as possible.”
The lack of consensus among Democrats on the policy shows the competing pressures facing candidates, many of whom represent states that produce and depend on fossil fuels. U.S. energy consumption reached a record high in 2018, with fossil fuels providing 80% of total energy used last year, the Energy Information Administration reported this week.
Warren’s move risks alienating swing voters, said Paul Bledsoe, a former climate change adviser in the Clinton administration. “What should be the climate litmus test for Democratic candidates is a serious long-term climate strategy that can gain public support and become law, not grandstanding oil and gas prohibition gestures that have no chance of enactment,” Bledsoe said.
President Barack Obama stopped short of stopping oil and gas drilling. One year before leaving office, Obama declared a moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands, which President Trump overturned. A federal judge ruled Friday the Trump administration failed to review the environmental impact of lifting the coal moratorium.
Trump has also overseen a massive expansion of fossil fuel development on federal lands and has proposed opening nearly all federal waters to oil and gas drilling.
“I’m hoping that the next president reclaims the moral authority to lead the world in fighting climate change that Trump has abdicated,” said R. L. Miller of the voter mobilization group Climate Hawks Vote. “You can’t keep pumping out fossil fuels with no end in sight while at the same time telling the rest of the world to move off fossil fuels.”
A Democratic president could simply use executive power to broaden Obama’s coal moratorium to oil and gas and submit an offshore leasing plan that does not offer any territory for drilling. Existing onshore leases would continue under such a plan.
“The Democratic candidates for president will support that policy position because they all believe in addressing climate change and he or she could use executive authority without requiring congressional approval to make a significant impact,” said Brandon Hurlbut, a former chief of staff at the Energy Department in the Obama administration.
Warren’s call for a stoppage on all fossil fuel leasing for public lands is not new.
She co-sponsored the Keep It in the Ground Act of 2015, a bill introduced by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would prohibit fossil fuel leases on federal lands and offshore.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., another presidential candidate, also co-sponsored that legislation.
Other presidential candidates, however, are less likely to be supportive of the policy.
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a centrist Democrat, oversaw an oil and gas boom in his state and has opposed efforts to curb fracking there.
Former Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., another centrist candidate, has criticized the Green New Deal as unrealistic despite being one of the most vocal supporters of carbon taxes. And former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke declined this week to sign a pledge from climate activists to not accept money from fossil fuel interests during the campaign.
