The green schism threatening Biden’s climate plan
Left-wing climate and environmental justice activists believe it isn’t ambitious enough.
(Rat thinks it's too ambitious. He doesn't beleve we can totally decarbonize the grid by '35.)
The emissions from the Gavin Power Plant are seen. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
By MICHAEL GRUNWALD
05/13/2021 12:00 PM EDT
President Joe Biden’s ambitious proposal to wean the U.S. electric grid off fossil fuels, already a non-starter with congressional Republicans, has run into a new band of politically inconvenient enemies: Left-wing climate and environmental justice activists who believe it isn’t ambitious enough.
Many prominent environmental groups have hailed Biden’s proposed clean electricity standard, the centerpiece of his plan to eliminate all planet-warming emissions from the power sector by 2035, as the most aggressive initiative to shut down dirty power plants in American history. But a rift that has opened inside the climate movement could make its uphill climb in Congress even steeper, as an insistent coalition of harder-edged grass-roots groups has begun blasting the CES as a lackluster half-measure that would sell out disadvantaged communities and waste a unique opportunity to attack the climate crisis.
More than 600 groups sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday warning that a CES would promote “false climate solutions” such as natural gas, nuclear and biomass power plants, as well as efforts to keep polluting plants open by capturing their carbon. The dissenters instead called for a stricter renewable electricity standard limited to wind, solar and geothermal power, not only to accelerate the deadline for a zero-emissions grid from 2035 to 2030, but to “avoid perpetuating the deep racial, social, and ecological injustices of our current fossil-fueled energy system.”
“This isn’t some fringe protest. It’s a real coalition, and it’s a real fight,” said Tamra Gilbertson, director of climate policy for the Indigenous Environmental Network. “We’re not just going to hope for the best with Biden, and we’re not going to be sidelined or silenced.”
It’s not unusual for progressive groups to form circular firing squads over obscure technical disputes, and there are always ideological tensions between eco-purists and eco-pragmatists. But this spat is erupting at a particularly inopportune time for climate action. The clean electricity standard was already one of the most controversial planks of Biden’s $2.5 trillion infrastructure plan, and supporters worry that in a narrowly divided Congress, divisions within the green movement could imperil the entire plan — or at least its climate-related provisions.
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