Environmental activists are complaining that the Democratic Party’s policy platform sent to delegates ahead of a final vote this week omits a call to end tax breaks and subsidies for fossil fuel companies — despite being approved by the party’s platform committee last month.
The language was approved in the July 27 “manager’s mark,” which the DNC confirmed to POLITICO at the time. But a DNC spokesperson said that “the amendment in question” was voted on in “error,” and that the Biden campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders ‘ (I-Vt.) campaign and the amendment sponsors agreed to remove it. Neither the Biden nor the Sanders campaign responded to requests for comment.
Environmentalists said the provision’s absence, combined with Biden’s and the Democratic platform’s reluctance to call for bans on fracking and ending fossil fuel exports while allowing for carbon capture, storage and utilization technology, raised concerns about how aggressively a Biden administration would clamp down on the companies driving climate change.
“Democrats have put forward some bold commitments on climate, but none of it will happen if they aren’t willing to take on the fossil fuel industry. We don’t have time for another four years of ‘all of the above,'” said Jamie Henn, a co-founder of 350.org and a coordinator for Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of environmental groups.
Related: Biden has raised more than $15 million in candidate contributions from new donors who specifically identify climate change as a cause, The New York Times reports.
Source: POLITICO
