Before you do anything else check out the climate scores of your politicians here

2020 Election

2020 ELECTION

2020 ELECTION

President Joe Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’s victory marks a new day in the fight for bold, just and equitable climate policy in the United States. It means that the US will now have a leadership that believes in science, knows that climate change is real, and is committed to supporting united and multilateral action.

Biden made climate change a cornerstone of his platform early in his campaign for the presidency, pledging to spend $2tn on clean energy, re-join the Paris Agreement (which he accomplished on February 19, 2021) and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. His plan was described as the most ambitious of any mainstream US presidential candidate. 

As a result of the 2020 election, Democrats now control the White House and the Congress, although in the Senate it will take Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie vote, making legislation challenging. The president will, nonetheless, will have a wide array of tools — from expanding renewables on federal lands to pushing the financial industry on climate change — that could put the U.S. on a trajectory to decarbonizing its electricity sector by 2035.

For more on what he has already accomplished and what he plans to accomplish, go to Biden’s Climate Plan and to the LAWS AND LITIGATION section where you will find extensive information on what is happening within the federal government, from the Executive branch to the Legislative and Judicial branches.

CURRENT NEWS

EPA preps for transition of power with unusual change to succession orders

By Rebecca Beitsch 01/11/21
A new line of succession established at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leaves an official who was slotted into a newly created high-ranking role just a month ago in charge on Inauguration Day.
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Granholm will Be Energy Secretary

By Peter Sinclair 12/16/20
President-elect Joe Biden will reportedly nominate Oakland resident Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor who teaches at UC Berkeley, to lead the Department of Energy, signaling a shift in the agency’s focus toward championing renewable…
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The World Needs Biden to Lead on Climate Reporting

By Michael R. Bloomberg 12/14/20
President-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to rejoin the Paris climate agreement sends an important signal to the world about U.S. leadership. But the action will merely take us back to four years ago. To push us…
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Why Business Should Back a Biden Climate Plan

By Kate Zerrenner 12/02/20
During the George W. Bush presidential administration, I worked for the Government Accountability Office. One project on which I worked was a look at the economic costs and benefits of the U.S. not taking action…
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On environmental protection, Biden’s election will mean a 180-degree turn from Trump policies

By Janet McCabe 11/13/20
The Trump administration has waged what I and many other legal experts view as an all-out assault on the nation’s environmental laws for the past four years. Decisions at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and other agencies…
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Scientists relieved as Joe Biden wins tight US presidential election

By Jeff Tollefson 11/06/20
The new president has the opportunity to reverse four years of anti-science policies — but he has a hard road ahead as he inherits a nation divided.
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Fate of climate crisis hangs on election as US exits Paris agreement

By Emily Holden 11/04/20
Trump administration set US withdrawal in motion a year ago but it didn’t take effect until 4 November
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This election, science seems more political than ever. Is it?

By Victoria Knight, KHN 11/04/20
Some research shows increasing political divides this year as a pandemic thrusts science into the election spotlight.
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Turning Out the Young

By Annabelle Williams 11/02/20
How the Sunrise Movement is mobilizing the youth vote—with a mix of reluctance and enthusiasm—for Biden
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There Is Only One Existential Threat. Let’s Talk About It.

By Farhad Manjoo 10/28/20
And yet I keep getting discouraged by how far there is to go. Voters, the candidates and especially the political media have not given it enough attention this year, considering the stakes at hand. Worse,…
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Climate policy faces a tough road through Congress regardless of electoral outcomes

By Matthew Bandyk 10/26/20
Ever since the 2009 Waxman-Markey bill — an attempt to create a national cap-and-trade emissions plan — passed in the House but hit a wall in the Senate, the prospects of both houses of Congress…
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KEY RESOURCES

These organizations are dedicated to bringing climate change into public policy, are watching how government does and doesn’t support measures supporting climate change, and are often with a particular emphasis on carbon taxes (or fees and dividends).

 

Democratic and Republican Views of Climate Change Interactive Maps

10/20/20
These maps show variations in the climate and clean energy views of Democrats (left map) and Republicans (right map) in the U.S. as a whole (national level) and for all 50 states and 435 congressional…

2020 Climate Change Voter’s Guide

10/08/20
Each 2020 candidate — whether for the Presidency, the Senate or the House, whether incumbent or challenger, gets a climate score from zero to 100 for the voter to take into the voting booth. Use…

How to Reverse Course on Trump’s Environmental Damage

08/22/20
The Interior Department has now blessed oil and gas drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge comes as no surprise. It was a foregone conclusion once Lisa Murkowski, in 2017, persuaded…

Restoring Science, Protecting the Public

07/03/20
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated in stark life-and-death terms how essential it is for government decisionmakers to heed and prioritize science. The United States quickly surpassed other nations in COVID-19 infections, and has suffered catastrophic…

Iowa bill would give apartment-seekers more information on energy bills

02/13/20
Iowa lawmakers are considering a bill that would require owners of large rental buildings to disclose typical utility costs to apartment-seekers.

Beyond Extreme Energy

12/31/19
No new permits for fossil fuel infrastructure. Renewable energy NOW.

Where 2020 Democrats stand on Climate change

06/05/19
Here’s where 2020 candidates stand on issues related to climate change, based on candidate statements, voting records and answers to a questionnaire we sent every campaign.

Where’s Your 2020 Candidate on Climate?

06/05/19
Greenpeace asked the 2020 candidates how they’ll act on the climate crisis if they become president. Here’s what they said… or didn’t say. And, test your knowledge with a short candidate quiz. 

League of Conservation Voters

06/05/19
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) works to turn environmental values into national, state and local priorities. LCV, in collaboration with our state LCV partners, advocates for sound environmental laws and policies, holds elected officials…

Environmental Voter Project

06/05/19
The Environmental Voter Project aims to significantly increase voter demand for progressive environmental policy by identifying inactive environmentalists and then turning them into consistent activists and voters.

MORE NEWS

Why Biden calls Trump a ‘climate arsonist’ – video explainer

By Emily Holden, Alex Healey, Katie Lamborn and Nikhita Chulani   10/26/20  
As part of our climate countdown series, the Guardian’s Emily Holden looks at how the US is far off the path of what is necessary to avoid catastrophic global heating – and examines why the…
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Climate at a crossroads as Trump and Biden point in different directions

by Oliver Milman   10/26/20  
The two US presidential contenders offer starkly different approaches as the world tries to avoid catastrophic global heating
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Polling Shows Growing Climate Concern Among Americans. But Outsized Influence of Deniers Remains a Roadblock

By Dana Drugman   10/24/20  
More Americans than ever before — 54 percent, recent polling data shows — are alarmed or concerned about climate change, which scientists warn is a planetary emergency unfolding in the form of searing heat, prolonged…
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Climate Congress 2020

10/20/20  
Over the next six months, we will be charged with responding to the COVID-19 crisis, building the movement for a Green New Deal, and protecting our democracy as our nation grapples with how to recover…
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The most detailed climate plan in U.S. history

10/20/20  
In this special episode, we talk to Florida Democrat Kathy Castor, who chairs the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis in the House of Representatives.
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By Calling Climate Change ‘Controversial,’ Barrett Created Controversy

By John Schwartz and Hiroko Tabuchi   10/15/20  
Judge Amy Coney Barrett refused to answer numerous questions, but it was her avoidance of acknowledging climate change that particularly resonated.
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A Field Guide to the Election and Climate Change

By Brad Plumer   10/14/20  
The climate crisis has risen as a major concern among voters. The two candidates have profoundly different approaches on energy, public lands and environmental priorities.
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Joe Biden Airs Climate-Themed TV Ad In Battleground Michigan

By Chris D’Angelo   10/07/20  
As President Donald Trump digs in on denial, the Democratic nominee has made combating the crisis a key part of his campaign.
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Biden wins over Pennsylvania union leaders worried about his climate plan

By Josh Siegel   10/06/20  
oe Biden has persuaded some leaders of fossil fuel-heavy building trade unions in Pennsylvania that his climate policies won’t harm them, a key development in a swing state expected to be decided by small margins.
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Biden Climate Ad is a First

By Peter Sinclair   10/06/20  
Past Democratic presidential nominees have certainly acknowledged the threat of climate change in their campaigns, though the issue has never been one to run on in and of itself. In 2008, then-Senator Obama committed to…
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Oil and gas lobby announces million-dollar ad campaign

By Timothy Cama   10/06/20  
The American Petroleum Institute is putting at least $1 million into a series of video advertisements meant to push the oil industry's campaign priorities in the final month before Election Day.
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A History Of Debating Climate Change

10/01/20  
Climate change has been a topic of presidential (and vice presidential) debate for decades yet, it seems the same basic points are being litigated in 2020.
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Energy dominance or climate action: Trump, Biden and the fate of public lands

By Paige Blankenbuehler   10/01/20  
In Grand Junction, Colorado, the presidential election is a choice between two distinct energy futures.
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Trump misled viewers on clean cars and gas mileage

By Maxine Joselow   09/30/20  
President Trump misrepresented his rollback of clean car standards and his record on electric vehicle subsidies at the first presidential debate last night, in a remarkably substantive exchange on climate and transportation policy.
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Greens make last-minute pitch for climate debate questions

09/29/20  
Environmental groups are ramping up the pressure for climate questions during tonight's debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
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Vote to address climate change; if we don’t, nothing else will matter

By Cornelia F. Mutel   09/26/20  
n mid-September, I drove west on Interstate Highway 80 toward a bright orangey-red sunset. How beautiful, I thought, also noting the faraway woodlands fading into gray. Until I realized what I was really seeing: smoke…
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White House authorizes $9.6B to rebuild Puerto Rico’s grid, but how can it be spent?

By Robert Walton   09/22/20  
The Trump Administration on Friday announced the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) authorized $9.6 billion to rebuild Puerto Rico's power infrastructure — three years after the island's electric grid was destroyed by Hurricane Maria.
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An extra Trump Supreme Court justice may help cement his environmental rollbacks

By Dino Grandoni   09/21/20  
A more conservative Supreme Court gives the Trump administration a greater chance of making its rollbacks of environmental rules last long after the president leaves office.
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Trump Declares He Is Now ‘the Best Thing That Ever Happened’ to Puerto Rico

By Peter Baker and Patricia Mazzei   09/18/20  
Three years later, after repeated Twitter outbursts, angry recriminations, blocked aid and a paper towel-throwing visit that went over badly, Mr. Trump sought on Friday to present himself as a friend of Puerto Rico, announcing…
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Potential swing states cash in with DOT’s latest grant round

By Tanya Snyder   09/17/20  
Some states that may be competitive in November's election — including Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas — raked in millions in infrastructure grants awarded Wednesday by the Department of Transportation, while blue states like New York…
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First Thing: Trump says ‘science doesn’t know’ what’s causing wildfires

By Tim Walker   09/15/20  
For only the second time in recorded history, five tropical cyclones are spinning across the Atlantic at the same time, including Hurricane Sally, which is due to make landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi on Tuesday. Hurricane Paulette…
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The Energy 202: Trump’s latest climate denial undercuts attempted rebrand as a ‘great environmentalist’

By Dino Grandoni   09/15/20  
President Trump is trying to rebrand himself as an environmentalist. But he is undermining that message with a fresh denial of global warming.
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The Electoral College Is Also a Climate Problem

By Peter Beinart   09/15/20  
Unlike Trump, Biden hasn’t been slow to address the wildfires because he doubts climate change. As he mentioned in his speech, he’s laid out a more ambitious agenda to tackle it than any other presidential…
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Biden and Trump deliver starkly different messages on wildfires

By Emily Holden and Daniel Strauss   09/14/20  
The climate crisis and record wildfires in the western US forced their way into the presidential campaign on Monday, with Joe Biden calling Donald Trump a “climate arsonist” and Trump falsely claiming that the planet…
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Senate 2020: Iowa Farmers Are Feeling the Effects of Climate Change

By Georgina Gustin   09/10/20  
Erratic, destructive weather, the GOP senator says, has nothing to do with human-driven warming. Her opponent, Theresa Greenfield, says the science can’t be denied.
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Trump expands oil drilling moratorium for Florida

By Ben Lefebvre   09/08/20  
President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday a decade-long ban on oil drilling off the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina — a decision that surprised energy industry executives by reversing the administration’s earlier pledges…
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Ed Markey reinvented himself with a focus on environmentalism, leading to his big win

By David Abel and Victoria McGrane   09/04/20  
A few days after Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III invited Senator Edward J. Markey to a Capitol Hill restaurant and broke the news that he intended to mount a primary challenge for his Senate seat,…
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Who’s advising Joe Biden on climate? His former rivals.

By Zoya Teirstein   09/03/20  
Over the past several months, Joe Biden has assumed the herculean task of bringing the progressive left under his banner while maintaining the support of the more moderate liberals who form his base. As a…
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House Democrats Demand Climate Be ‘Centerpiece’ Of 2020 Presidential Debates

By Chris D’Angelo   09/02/20  
In 2016, debate moderators did not ask a single question about the climate crisis. Dozens of lawmakers want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
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Climate is Taking on a Growing Role for American Voters, Research Suggests

08/26/20  
The number of Americans who feel passionately about climate change is rising sharply, and the issue appears likely to play a more important role in this year’s election than ever before, a new survey shows.
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Youth Climate Activists To Speak At Democratic National Convention

By Kevin Robillard   08/19/20  
Alexandria Villaseñor, one of the founders of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, will speak.
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Democrats mention climate change frequently (but only briefly) during convention

By Dino Grandoni   08/19/20  
Democratic politicians and activists on Tuesday heaped praise on former vice president Joe Biden’s plan to tackle rising global temperatures at the convention— and criticized President Trump for denying the problem while in office.
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Kamala Harris promises jobs, fight against climate change as part of Biden administration

08/13/20  
“We'll protect a woman's right to make her own decisions about her own body, root out systemic racism in our justice system, and pass a new Voting Rights Act, a John Lewis Voting Rights Act,…
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Kamala Harris might help ‘night and day’ shift for US on global climate diplomacy

By Alister Doyle and Chloé Farand   08/12/20  
If they defeat Trump, Biden and Harris will have to prove they can cut emissions at home to rebuild US global leadership on climate change. The post Kamala Harris might help ‘night and day’ shift…
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Climate Change: Republican Platform provides a blast from the past

By William House   08/09/20  
I experienced a time-warp today and traveled into the past. It was a world where children and teachers attended schools without fear of death. A world where 160,000 Americans hadn’t perished from an uncontained virus,…
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Prospect of Biden win highlights vulnerability of 4 major power, climate rules

By Zack Hale   08/06/20  
As the EPA enters the final stretch of the first Trump administration, the president's signature energy- and climate-related rules are still being litigated before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,…
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With big rallies cancelled, young climate activists are adapting election tactics

By Lauren Aratani   08/03/20  
For young climate activists in the US, staying home because of the pandemic does not mean staying silent, with plans gathering pace across the country to make their voices heard in November’s elections.
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How Joe Biden’s surprisingly ambitious climate plan came together

By Brady Dennis and Dino Grandoni   07/31/20  
During a virtual fundraiser late last week focused on climate action, former vice president Joe Biden made a direct appeal to voters young enough to be his grandchildren.
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Biden calls for 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. Here’s how far we have to go.

By John Muyskens and Juliet Eilperin   07/30/20  
During a virtual fundraiser late last week focused on climate action, former vice president Joe Biden made a direct appeal to voters young enough to be his grandchildren.
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It’s time for America to reassert climate leadership. It starts with votingx

By Michael Mann   07/29/20  
ndividual efforts are important, but we need collective action and systemic change. And we can only get that at the ballot
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Oil and Gas Groups See ‘Some Common Ground’ in Biden Energy Plan

By Clifford Krauss and Ivan Penn   07/28/20  
Some energy executives are pleased that the former vice president is not calling for a fracking ban and said they could work with him.
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The Next Election Is About the Next 10,000 Years

By Bill McKibben   07/27/20  
The upcoming election looks to be an apocalyptic turning point for our democracy—and our planet. In Turnout! Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency, political visionaries and movement leaders such as Bill McKibben define the urgency of…
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How the global climate fight could be lost if Trump is re-elected

By Oliver Milman   07/27/20  
“I found it sickening, it was mendacious from start to finish,” said Stern. “I was furious … because here we have this really important thing and here’s this joker who doesn’t understand anything he’s talking…
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Biden plots $2tn green revolution but faces wind and solar backlash

By Oliver Milman   07/25/20  
Enormous overhaul will have to defeat opposition from fossil-fuel lobbyists and residents unhappy with nearby turbines Joe Biden’s $2tn plan to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions from the US electricity grid within 15 years has…
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The oil lobby is already finding fault with Biden’s new climate plan

By Dino Grandoni   07/16/20  
The oil and gas sector is not thrilled with several parts of Joe Biden’s new climate plan. Petroleum industry representatives are arguing the former vice president’s plan to mandate a transition from gas-fired power to…
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The Biden Plan to Build a Modern, Sustainable Infrastructure and an Equitable Clean Energy Future

By Joe Biden   07/15/20  
At this moment of profound crisis, we have the opportunity to build a more resilient, sustainable economy – one that will put the United States on an irreversible path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by…
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The Biden Plan To Secure Environmental Justice And Equitable Economic Opportunity

07/15/20  
The current COVID-19 pandemic reminds us how profoundly the energy and environmental policy decisions of the past have failed communities of color – allowing systemic shocks, persistent stressors, and pandemics to disproportionately impact communities of…
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Biden pleases some once leery liberals with new climate plan

By Dino Grandoni   07/15/20  
Joe Biden has won over some left-leaning parts of the Democratic coalition skeptical of his bid for president with a new climate plan. As Matt Viser and I report, the former vice president and presumptive…
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Biden outlines $2T plan to invest in renewables, electrification

By Emma Penrod   07/15/20  
Sweeping investments would spur millions of jobs and the construction of energy-efficient public housing, installation of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, and would end carbon-based electrical generation by 2035, Biden said.
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