JD Vance & Climate Issues: Blowin’ With The Political Winds – CleanTechnica

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Remember when flip-flopping on issues was a political death knell? No more. JD Vance, US vice presidential candidate on the Trump/ MAGA ticket, has vacillated about climate pollution many, many times since he entered the public arena.

He gave a speech in 2020 at the Ohio State Center for Ethics and Human Values that said we have a climate problem in our society and described solar energy as “the biggest improvement in emissions.” He allowed then that natural gas “is an improvement over dirtier forms of power” but wouldn’t “take us to a clean energy future.”

Later on, though, when a guest with the American Leadership Forum, Vance questioned whether “climate change was caused purely by man.” He now supports fracking and the oil and gas industry. He opposes solar power and wants to repeal legislation to promote electric vehicles (OV). Open Secrets calculates that he has received $340,289 from the oil and gas industry in campaign contributions since 2019.

As Politico commented this week, “Vance changed his tune on climate change. Oil cash flowed.”

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A victory for the Trump-Vance ticket in November’s presidential election could lead to an additional 4 billion tons of US emissions by 2030 compared with Joe Biden’s plans, a new Carbon Brief analysis reveals. The fossil fuel industry was certainly pleased with the selection of Vance — he’s “somebody who understands kind of what we do and how we do it,” Ohio Oil and Gas Association spokesperson Mike Chadsey told E&E News.

JD Vance’ Trajectory: Convenience Positions on Climate

In 2017, Vance was touring the country, basking in the success of his novel, Hillbilly Elegy. “I think that the story of the American industry has been one where some industries go away and then some industries arise to take their place. It’s been this constant disruption/innovation cycle,” he told an audience at New York’s 92nd Street Y, the city’s renowned cultural and spiritual center. “I don’t think that we should be trying to just protect industries for the sake of protecting them.”

As Capital and Main reported, as a venture capital investor, Vance invested in two microgrid developers, an EV charging technology startup, and a fund that invested $10 million in a renewable energy tech company, Heliogen, which says on its website that it’s “unlocking the power of sunlight to replace fossil fuels.” Vance also sat on the board of AppHarvest, a sustainable agriculture company that was committed to “seeking to accelerate a zero-carbon energy future,” which has since filed for bankruptcy.

As his political trajectory rose, Vance seemed a different person. No longer was he an advocate of climate action.

A 2021 financial disclosure showed that Vance had between $100,001 and $250,000 parked in a mutual fund that invests in crude oil futures; by 2022, he had decreased that amount to between $50,001 and $100,000.

In a 2022 discussion with conservative radio hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton, Vance dismissed the idea of a “climate crisis we need to destroy the economy to deal with.” He did a turnaround about coal, too. “I think that the idea that we’re gonna bring back hundreds of thousands of coal jobs in Appalachia is probably, almost certainly, in fact, not true … coal is just not as economically viable of a fuel source, as an energy source, in the era of natural gas and all the renewables.”

That same year Vance called out support of the “Green New Deal” (aka the Inflation Reduction Act) as “little more than a handout to Chinese companies at the expense of Ohio workers. It’s dumb, does nothing for the environment, and will make us all poorer.”

In a 2023 editorial, Vance condemned the Biden–Harris administration for “doing everything it can to subsidize alternative energy sources and demonize our nation’s most reliable sources of power,” adding that “a war on traditional American energy is a war on the American standard of living.”

During the UAW strike last year, Vance blamed mediocre worker wage increases of 6% on “the premature transition to electric vehicles” rather than greedy CEOs’ average compensation going up 40% over the last 4 years. He stated that he supports collective bargaining “as an abstract matter.”

In an April 2024 post on X, Vance condemned “elite universities,” calling them “expensive day care centers for coddled children.” The US Senator from Ohio graduated from Yale Law School in 2013.

Although none of the attempts have become law, Vance has also endorsed legislation to:

• repeal an IRA program designed to curb leaks of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas;
• undo an Environmental Protection Agency rule setting strict emissions standards for cars and light trucks; and,
• impose a $20,000 tariff on all Chinese vehicles imported into the US.

Final Thoughts

New York Times columnist David Brooks explains that JD Vance is the “embodiment” of a worldview that favors working-class interests and offers working-class voters respect “with his suspicion of corporate power, foreign entanglements, free trade, cultural elites and high rates of immigration.” Brooks goes on to say that the MAGA allure is “very different from the traditional American consciousness,” which he describes as continual self-improvement, building a homeland together, and dreams of a common future. “If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century,” Brooks says, adding, such “a fluid, mobile society” would be the “patriotism of hope.”

But the hope for mitigating the climate crisis would be destroyed.

The Sunrise Movement has announced that Trump and Vance would cause “catastrophic and irreversible damage” to the climate if elected. “National Republicans have made it clear that they have no plans to address climate change, and don’t even want to talk about it,” their statement says. The Sunrisers note that the Trump–Vance group has promised to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and end decades-old protections for air and water.

“Make no mistake. Just because Republicans don’t want to talk about their climate plans to voters, doesn’t mean that their radical, anti-climate agenda that empowers oil and gas billionaires to destroy our planet won’t be a top priority for a second Trump administration. Another Trump Presidency would cause catastrophic and irreversible damage to our climate.”

This decade, 2020–2030, is widely thought to be our last best chance to make the changes urgently needed to secure a livable future for all life on Earth. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that “another Trump presidency would be a disaster — not only for our country, but for the world. We will lose the fight against climate change.”