Biden Unveils Climate Change Plan to Revamp the Energy Sector

July 14, 2020

Today, Joe Biden rolled out a more aggressive plan to fight climate change that seeks to balance progressives’ demands for bold action on climate change against protecting swing-state jobs in a struggling economy.

Biden’s plan includes spending $2 trillion on clean energy over the next four years and setting a 100% clean-electricity standard by 2035, people briefed on the proposal said. The new plan goes further than the $1.7 trillion over 10 years proposal he offered during the Democratic primary.

It’s clear Biden is clawing for the approval of progressives in his own party, having changed his previous plan to go further left. Unfortunately, Biden is isolating himself from the moderates in his party and voters in the middle.

Bloomberg reports:

Organized labor, key allies for Democrats, could emerge as an obstacle to any clean-energy plan that imperils jobs in the fossil-fuel industry. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s comment that she was going to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” damaged her campaign and gave Trump an easy line of attack.

That leaves Biden seeking to toe the line with unions — much of his candidacy is based on his appeal to working-class voters — stressing that he will work to create “good-paying union jobs” in infrastructure and energy, and downplaying jobs that will be lost as the energy industry shifts.

Biden faces the conundrum of winning over his party’s progressive wing with ambitious climate proposals without alienating swing voters in states like Ohio and his native Pennsylvania.

Biden’s proposal is out of touch with the reality of middle-America. During this time of economic uncertainty and heightened unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s dumbfounding the radical left would attack the industry that supports almost 10 million jobs across the county.

Americans need relief; not further unemployment, higher electricity bills, and national security concerns. All of which would become true under a Biden presidency.