President Joe Biden wants voters to remember his administration’s climate and energy legacy — even if it’s a record that Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has been reluctant to talk much about. Speaking today at the United Nations General Assembly and later at a climate event in New York, Biden forcefully outlined his administration’s climate actions, such as rejoining the Paris climate agreement and signing into law the nation’s largest-ever investment in clean energy — while telling business leaders, “It's a perfect time to go big.” “We’ve proven that a strong middle class, thriving innovation and manufacturing are the key to winning climate here at home and abroad,” he said at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum this afternoon. “This is a new formula on climate: creating jobs, reducing pollution, cleaning up our water and air, improving our quality of life, building a better America,” he added, rattling off what could have served as his reelection message had his June debate performance gone differently. He called it an alternative to offering voters “a climate conversation about sacrifice.” Biden’s afternoon appearance, on the sidelines of Climate Week, was perhaps his last major opportunity to sum up his ambitious, expansive energy agenda in public before the November election, writes Sara Schonhardt. He spoke as climate activists rallied on Manhattan streets for bolder action against fossil fuel pollution. Highlighting his policy work is a likely attempt to burnish his own legacy while providing a boost to Harris as she runs to replace him, writes Robin Bravender. Harris, on the other hand, has shied away from touting the administration’s efforts to curb carbon pollution and create domestic clean energy jobs, even if she’s shown every sign that she would continue to advance Biden’s policies. When she has discussed energy, she has pointed to the United States’ world-leading oil and natural gas production as well as pocketbook issues such as rising insurance costs related to climate change. She has also renounced her 2019 pledge to ban fracking amid attacks by former President Donald Trump. Biden also drew a sharp contract between a potential Harris administration and a potential second Trump administration. “He moved the world backwards,” Biden said of Trump. “His denial of climate change condemns our future generations to a more dangerous world. And by the way, windmills do not cause cancer.”
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