The Democrats are running as moderates to win in the once-deeply red state that President-elect Joe Biden narrowly nabbed.
But Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue (R-Ga.) are still finding political purchase in tethering them to the climate plan backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
“They mean socialism,” Loeffler told a crowd Saturday in Carrollton, Ga., referring to her opponent, Warnock, along with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “The Green New Deal,” she added, “would cost every family $75,000.” (There was no cost estimate in the actual plan.)
Perdue says he believes the climate is changing but has stopped short of agreeing with the scientific consensus that human activity is behind global warming. Instead, Perdue has attacked Ossoff over the Green New Deal, calling it a piece of Democrats’ “leftist, radical, socialist agenda” during an appearance last week on Fox News.
Similarly, an ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee claims Ossoff “praises AOC’s radical Green New Deal.”
President Trump similarly needled Biden over the Green New Deal during the presidential election, despite the Democratic candidate’s rejection of the plan.
Ossoff has been clear in opposing the resolution.
But Ossoff commended its sponsors “for linking environmental policy and infrastructure policy,” as he told the New York Times in October.
The Green New Deal is a broad, nonbinding resolution put forward two years ago by Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal lawmakers to cut U.S. contributions to climate change in just 10 years. Biden and top House Democrats are instead aiming to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Like the former vice president, both Ossoff and Warnock call for reentering the Paris climate agreement and undoing the repeal of Barack Obama-era regulations as part of a clean energy transition. Both neither endorses the Green New Deal by name on their websites, nor have they committed that aggressive 10-year timeline for decarbonization.
There is a lot at stake in the Georgia runoffs.
Control of the Senate is up for grabs after voting ends Tuesday. If both Ossoff and Warnock win, Democrats would force a 50-50 tie in the Senate. Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris would serve as the tiebreaker, handing control to Schumer.
The results Tuesday will help determine the extent to which Biden will be able to enact his $2 trillion plan for reducing emissions from the power and auto sectors. Already his administration is preparing to act without much legislative support.
Though climate change has not figured prominently into the Senate races, Georgia’s farms, cities and coastline are vulnerable to sea-level rise, heat waves and other extreme weather linked to rising global warming, according to the National Climate Assessment.
Several environmental groups, including the Sunrise Movement, have lined up in support of Warnock and Ossoff, even though neither candidate backs the deal, knowing that their success at the polls is the only way Democrats can gain full control of Congress.
It is expected to be a close race. Cook Political Report rates both races as toss-ups.
Power plays
Trump vetoed a bill that would have banned a fishing technique harmful to wildlife off the California coast.
The bill would have phased out use of large-mesh drift gillnets in federal waters off California over a five-year period, the Associated Press reports. These nets, used to catch thresher sharks and swordfish, often entangle other marine life, including whales, dolphins and sea lions, and are already prohibited in U.S. waters off the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. In 2018, California passed a four-year phaseout of the nets in state waters.
Trump claimed in his veto message on Friday that the legislation would cause Americans to import more foreign seafood and worsen a multibillion-dollar seafood trade deficit.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said “more whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other marine species will be needlessly killed.” She pledged to reintroduce the bill during the new Congress and “push for quick enactment once President Biden is in office.”
A court will consider a request to stop the Trump administration’s Arctic oil lease sale.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage will hear oral arguments today in a case brought by the National Audubon Society and other environmental groups attempting to halt the sale of oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The case is one of four lawsuits brought by environmental groups, tribal organizations and 15 state governments challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s plan to open bids this week, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Many major banks have ruled out financing for Arctic oil exploration, and it is unclear how much interest the lease sale will attract. “In a highly unusual step, a state of Alaska-owned corporation could be among the bidders in an effort to acquire and hold leases for possible future development by oil companies, during what’s considered a challenging time for investment in Arctic oil projects,” the Anchorage Daily News writes.
A video of a National Park Service ranger using a Taser on a Native American man sparked an investigation.
The National Park Service opened an investigation after Darrell House uploaded a video showing a National Park Service ranger repeatedly using a Taser on him in the Petroglyph National Monument, our colleague Andrea Salcedo reports. “Stop!” House pleads with the officer in the video, which was filmed by his sister. “I don’t have anything, sir. … I’m a peaceful person.”
The National Park Service released footage from the officer’s body camera last week and noted that the video shows House and his sister providing fake names and dates of birth to the officer, who confronted House and his sister after they strayed off the marked trail. The service said an investigation is ongoing.
House, who identifies as Native American, said he has a right to freely worship on the land, even off-trail, and believes he was the victim of excessive force because he is Indigenous.
Oil check
Recent graduates hoping for a career in oil are struggling to land jobs.
Amid an oil slump sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, some students seeking elite positions in the oil and gas industry are finding their career plans disrupted, as they contend with limited job offerings, the New York Times reports.
“The industry has attracted thousands of young people in recent years with the promise of secure careers as shale drilling took off and made the United States the world’s largest producer of oil. But many students and recent graduates say they are no longer sure that there is a place for them in the industry,” according to the New York Times. “Even after the pandemic ends, some of them fear that growing concerns about climate change will lead to the inevitable decline of oil and gas.”
Climate solutions
Researchers in Britain unveil a new method to convert carbon dioxide into jet fuel.
Researchers led by the University of Oxford published a study on a new scientific process that would transform carbon dioxide in the air into an alternative jet fuel that could be used by existing aircraft and result in “carbon-neutral” emissions, The Post’s Dalvin Brown reports. Using oxides of iron, manganese and potassium as a catalyst in flowing hydrogen, the researchers pioneered a process that pulled carbon dioxide out of the air in a laboratory setting and resulted in a liquid they think could act like jet fuel.
The Oxford scientists say their technique would be cheaper than other biofuel methods and that they hope it can be used on a transatlantic trip within three years. “Aviation fuel experts outside of the experiment champion the idea but wonder whether it will be feasible at scale since it’s more complicated to extract carbon dioxide from the air than from a canister,” Brown writes.
Extra mileage
It’s a new year, and the U.S. has a new national park.
Legislation designating West Virginia’s New River Gorge as a national park was included in an omnibus spending package that Trump signed into law on Dec. 27. The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve includes 53 miles of rivers and is already popular site for whitewater rafting, hiking, biking and hunting.
