Four major environmental groups have endorsed Biden’s reelection

CNN
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Four major environmental groups endorsed President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection for president Wednesday night, ahead of his speech at a League of Conservation Voters dinner in the nation’s capital.

The LCV Action Fund, NextGen PAC, the Sierra Club, and the NRDC Action Fund endorsed Biden in conjunction with the dinner, which honored former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. This is the first time all four groups have issued a joint endorsement, Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, told CNN. .

Sittenfeld said the endorsement is a recognition of Biden’s accomplishments on climate, clean energy, and environmental justice, including the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and strong federal regulations issued by the agency of the Biden administration.

“They have done more than any administration in history to address the climate crisis and advance clean energy solutions and environmental justice,” Sittenfeld told CNN.

Sittenfeld said environmental groups want to see Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris re-elected for four more years so they can “finish the job” on their climate agenda, especially given that Republican candidates running for president could undo part of that agenda.

“The stakes have never been higher and we see every day MAGA Republicans in Congress trying to advance climate change,” Sittenfeld told CNN, adding to the differences between Biden and the candidates. of the Republican for president “couldn’t be more extreme.”

“It’s clear that as much progress as we’ve made, there’s more that needs to be done,” Sittenfeld said.

The four groups have considerable influence in the environmental movement and the Biden administration. Their political arms have spent millions of dollars in past elections and mobilized voters across the country on climate issues.

The Sierra Club is one of the oldest environmental groups in the country, while NextGen calls itself the largest group in the country that mobilizes youth voters. Meanwhile, Biden’s first White House Climate Adviser, Gina McCarthy, came from the NRDC before serving in her post (McCarthy was also the EPA administrator in the Obama administration).

“President Biden’s climate leadership is nothing short of historic,” said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the NRDC Action Fund, in a statement.

As important as Biden’s early endorsement groups are, they don’t necessarily represent the views of the entire climate movement. Some groups and activists have recently expressed frustration with the president and his administration for approving fossil fuel projects, most recently pushing the Mountain Valley pipeline to be included in the cap law. in debt.

As smoke from the wildfires choked DC’s air quality on Thursday, activists staged a massive sit-in outside the White House to protest the pipeline.

“President Biden, we’re all here because we want you to declare a climate emergency and do the right thing,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democrat from Michigan, to the people.

As reported by CNN, a White House official said that the White House is pushing the pipeline to be included in the debt limit provision to provide a compromise that was struck by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia last year to get his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act.

But some climate activists have rejected that reasoning, saying they want to see Biden scrap fossil fuel projects in addition to passing bold climate bills.

“Why is Manchin ahead of the millions of young people who reject their failure to vote in 2020 and 2022?” said Elise Joshi, acting executive director of the youth group Gen-Z for Change. “Every time young people show up for the Democratic Party, and keeping promises doesn’t seem to work for us.”

Joshi said he will ultimately vote for Biden in the 2024 election, but added that the president should give him and the youth more reasons to encourage him.

“Most importantly I don’t want a Republican presidency, we know it’s terrible,” he said. “But if (Biden) is our best option of the two, why don’t you make that option even better?”

This article and story has been updated with additional developments.