Tonight’s vice presidential debate offers a prime-time chance to ask candidates about their approaches to climate change — and the events of the past week couldn’t make a clearer case for making this part of the conversation. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance will take the stage as the Southeast reels from the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene, an unusually large storm that was likely supercharged by record-warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The cost to repair the damage could reach $34 billion, according to the financial data firm Moody’s. The storm is almost certain to come up at the debate — and how Walz and Vance respond could have outsized importance, writes Adam Aton. Normally, the vice presidential debates are sandwiched between presidential ones. But GOP nominee Donald Trump has said he will not debate Vice President Kamala Harris again before the November election. “The electoral impact of vice presidential candidates is at the margins,” St. Louis University professor Joel Goldstein, who studies the vice presidency, told Adam. “But you know, many of our elections are decided at the margins.” Walz’s and Vance’s records offer insight into the partisan divide over how to respond to more frequent and intense natural disasters — and the climate crisis fueling them. Vance stance: Vance has mostly opposed federal aid for disaster victims, write Timothy Cama and Corbin Hiar. Since taking office in January 2023, the Ohio senator has voted against all but one appropriations package. He skipped the most recent vote on stopgap funding to keep the government running, which extended current disaster funding levels but did not include the additional aid sought by the White House. When it comes to addressing climate change, Vance has championed fracking and derided clean energy since he joined the Senate. It’s worth noting, however, that Vance wasn’t always such a fossil fuel fan. In 2020, he spoke at Ohio State University about society’s “climate problem” and said using natural gas as a power source “isn’t exactly the sort of thing that’s gonna take us to a clean energy future.” In Helene’s wake, Vance could also face new questions about Project 2025 — the conservative blueprint for a second Trump term that calls for “commercializing” federal weather forecasting, slashing public rebuilding money, and dissolving federal flood insurance. Trump, of course, has tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation-led project’s policy prescriptions. The Walz way: As Minnesota governor, Walz has overseen the recovery efforts from seven presidentially declared natural disasters — and has pointed to that experience while talking about Helene. He also enacted a number of environmental and climate policies in Minnesota that Democrats would like to replicate nationally, taking advantage of tax boons in President Joe Biden’s signature climate law. Climate hawks see an obvious opening for Walz to connect the hurricane to the need for climate action, juxtaposed with Trump and Vance’s rejection of climate science. But Walz has mostly spoken about climate change in the context of clean air and water. At his convention acceptance speech, for example, Walz made no mention of climate or the energy laws he’s passed.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment