Climate hawks fear Tom Steyer’s presidential run could backfire

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Environmentalists are not enthusiastic about California billionaire Tom Steyer’s late entrance into the presidential race and worry his campaign could backfire.

“Eh. There’s no clamor for him to run,” said R.L. Miller, founder of the liberal voter mobilization group Climate Hawks Vote and the head of the California Democratic Party’s environmental caucus. “I don’t know how he’d find a lane.”

Steyer’s campaign could blunt momentum generated by candidates, such as Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who have elevated climate change as a priority in the primary elections by proposing detailed policies to curb it.

“A lot of people will be skeptical of a message of ‘I have a lot of money’ as a reason to vote for him, and merely saying you care about the climate isn’t enough,” said Brett Hartl, chief political strategist of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund.

Environmentalists say Steyer would be better served spending the $100 million in personal money he has pegged for his campaign to outside activities, such as helping other presidential candidates or advocating for policy at the state and local level.

“It’s an absolute mistake for him to jump in,” said one climate change policy activist. “He’s doing it for the wrong reasons. There has been the strongest climate narrative in any presidential race. His support would be best placed behind the movement, not throwing $100 million to a presidential run focused on him.”

While Steyer is a long-time funder of climate change initiatives, and one of the party’s top donors overall, he is also among the loudest Democrats calling for President Trump’s impeachment. Advocates fear that drive against Trump could distract from Steyer’s focus on climate change and fracture a field that has coalesced around policy proposals to stop the use of fossil fuels and spend on clean energy.

Steyer in his campaign announcement this week said he will focus on solving two major crises: “reforming our broken political system and saving our planet from the ravages of climate change.”

“Steyer is not known as a climate candidate nationally,” the climate policy advocate said. “He is known as impeachment candidate. I don’t see evidence that he won’t fracture the long tail of one-percenters.”

Environmentalists who support Steyer’s campaign, however, appreciate his decadelong climate change advocacy and welcome additional attention to the issue.

“Sure he’s a late entrant to the race, but he clearly has a passion for addressing climate change and a lot of practice talking to voters about the issue,” said Joe Bonfiglio, president of EDF Action, the advocacy arm of the Environmental Defense Fund.

In 2013, Steyer founded NextGen America, an environmental advocacy nonprofit organizatio that boosted turnout for Democrats in key districts in the House last year. The group also funded ballot initiatives at the state level in November’s elections for clean electricity mandates in Arizona (which failed) and Nevada (which succeeded).

Climate advocates say Steyer should continue with projects like those going into 2020. They urged him to follow the lead of former New York City billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who declined a presidential run and instead devoted $500 million to a campaign to kill coal and decrease the use of oil and gas.

Steyer has pledged to continue funding his two advocacy groups — the other is Need to Impeach, focused on Trump’s removal from office — but said they will be independent of his presidential campaign.

“He could so much more with $100 million wisely invested in say state legislative races, or in places where they are considering some sort of carbon cap measure than with $100 million spent frivolously,” said a congressional aide for a Democrat who is active on climate policy issues. “It’s burning a huge pile of money.”

Ideological allies were reluctant to criticize Steyer on-the-record, given his ties to the environmental movement and influence.

But progressive critics of Steyer’s campaign say his wealth and background as an investor could turn off Democratic primary voters who are wary of corporate power and political spending. His net worth is $1.6 billion, according to Forbes, with his wealth built through a hedge fund he founded called Farallon Capital Management that had a history of investing in fossil fuel projects. Steyer sold the fund in 2012 after running it for 26 years. He left the firm in part because of its holdings in fossil fuels, investments that he regretted, he recently told the Los Angeles Times.

“People in the climate space feel beholden to him and are unwilling to go on record to undermine his campaign,” said the climate policy advocate. “It speaks to how billionaires think they can influence the system by throwing money at it. It’s not a good look.”

The campaigns for liberal presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have launched similar attacks on Steyer.

“What we don’t need is more billionaires running for president — and more people spending their vast wealth to buy the political system,” Sanders’ campaign said in a fundraising solicitation on Thursday.

“The Democratic primary shouldn’t be decided by billionaires, whether they’re funding Super PACs or funding themselves,” Warren said in a fundraising email the day before.

The Steyer campaign did not return requests for comment asking about the rationale for his campaign. Steyer initially postponed his entrance into the 2020 to focus on his effort to impeach Trump. But according to the Atlantic, Steyer grew frustrated that Inslee, who is running a campaign focused on climate change, is only polling at about 1%.

Paul Bledsoe, a former climate change adviser to President Bill Clinton, sees a lane for Steyer but is skeptical of his potential effectiveness.

“Steyer wants to take the fight more personally to Trump,” Bledsoe said. “He sees himself as a fearless partisan warrior who will take a much more direct, visceral, harsher tone against Trump on climate than he thinks current candidates are willing to. It’s not about getting better polling numbers. It’s about getting public attention to what he sees as a crisis in climate change and, in particular, Trump’s role in it.”

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