Vice-Presidential Debate Fueled By Talk Of Energy, Environment And Climate Change

Civility, generally, ruled the vice presidential debate. But it was still heated — fueled by talk of energy, the environment and climate change. 

Each side went to their respective corners — and fought for their causes. Democrats are set on investing in the green economy and expanding the job market — to move the nation into a net-zero carbon era. Republicans are backing the traditional energy eco-system, adding that a “Green New Deal” would do indelible damage. Americans are tired of empty words and are looking to the candidates’ records. 

Donald Trump “rode the coattails of Biden’s success,” said Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, now a U.S. Senator from California. Trump has now “reigned over a recession that is compared to the Great Depression” — pointing to the loss of 300,000 manufacturing jobs and a failed trade policy with China. She said that this election is about whether the nation goes forward or whether it goes backward — a hard task for anyone given the record red ink. 

Vice President Pence countered that argument by saying that a Biden administration would enact a $2 trillion version of the Green New Deal — an investment that would be made over four years. That would lead to “more taxes, more regulation, banning fracking and crushing fossil fuels,” he said. “President Trump will keep America growing” — an odd statement, given the gross domestic product is losing ground. 

Past is Prelude

In context, it is necessary to go back to 2008 — just as the Great Recession was getting its legs, the stock market was nosediving and the American people were getting thrown out of work. The Obama-Biden administration won on the promise that it would invest $1 trillion in the American economy. While the nation crawled out of the recession, it is fair to say that both job and economic growth was constant and unemployment fell from about 10% to 5% over eight years. 

Every Republican voted against the Obama-Biden plan. But many Democrats supported the Trump-Pence 2020 plan, which has injected at least $3 trillion public dollars into the economy. That money has gone to help small businesses stay afloat and to pay American households a stimulus check. The Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says that more stimulus is needed. The Democrats think some of it should go toward the New Energy Economy. 

“Joe Biden will not ban fracking,” Harris said. “That is a fact. We will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year. By the end of their term, (the Trump Administration) will have lost more jobs than any other administration.” Harris then said “Joe believes in science” and that he is witnessing stronger hurricanes along the Gulf Coast while he is watching the West Coast burn.

Biden would “put a radical environmental agenda ahead of jobs,” Pence countered, adding that “Joe never fought the trade war” — a remark made after Harris said that Trump had lost the one with China and that farmers are going bust while many Americans are not meeting their rent payments. Pence said that the president blames China for this country’s troubles. 

Moody’s MCO and Oxford Economics studies, say that Biden’s economic plan would create jobs and add more than two percentage points to the GDP.

Just how green?

Biden’s plan is $2 trillion — paid, in part, by reversing some of Trump’s tax cuts. About 40% of that money would go to disadvantaged communities. It would invest more in wind and solar technologies, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, public transportation and smart grids that make more room for green electrons. The projects, meanwhile, would go into at-risk communities as well as those that are now dependent on coal.

Consumer sentiment is already driving this movement. But those market forces are not enough to stave off the ill-effects of global warming. According to a just-released study by Environmental Entrepreneurs, E4TheFuture and the American Council on Renewable Energy, the recession has taken its toll: before the coronavirus, employers projected at least 175,000 clean energy jobs would be added in 2020. Not so now. In fact, 478,000 of those jobs have been lost this year.

How will all this play with the American people? Pretty predictably. The Blue States favor an expedited transition to the clean energy economy and want the federal government to address climate change. The Red States have more traditional values while many voters there have jobs tied to the industrial economy, which has suffered from factories closing or moving overseas. 

Pennsylvania is a good case study. So is West Virginia. Each is likely to go in different directions, as far as the presidential race goes. Biden leads big in Pennsylvania that has historically been rooted in steel and coal but that is now on the leading edge of the digital economy. Trump, on the other hand, leads by wide margins in West Virginia that is suffering because of coal’s collapse.  

The Poor and Desperate

But Paula Jean Swearengin, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in West Virginia, told this writer on Wednesday that her state is exasperated — that Trump’s promise to bring back coal has been a giant con. She is a coal miner’s daughter and has known death and desperation. She wants to debate coal’s future with sitting Senator Shelly Moore Capito, who has gone into hiding and caused Twitter to trend: “Where’s Capito?”

“What is her golden ticket to make the coal market rebound,” she said. “We know it is a boom and bust market. How come the people in the coalfields are still living in poverty? They have no sewage and they have cardboard windows. When will this change? 

“When are we going to start talking about renewables and expanding our state’s economic base?” she continues. “Capito has never had to worry about where her next meal is coming from — a woman scrutinized for allegedly trading on inside information. How can she make decisions for us when she can’t come close to relating to us? She has never had to struggle. But we can’t even get her to debate.” 

The vice presidential debate never touched on coal or the cause of the poverty-stricken — except to imply that Biden’s green energy program would invest in states overrun by economic despair. If coal won’t save them perhaps green energy jobs will — just as it has done in Pennsylvania and countless other states.