2024: Year of the climate flip-flop
By JACK QUINN
04/12/2024 05:03 PM EDT
Progressives who assumed they had an ally in John Fetterman — a tattooed, hoodie-wearing first-term senator with a raft of green-group endorsements — are confounded by the Pennsylvania Democrat’s takes on two hot issues: tailpipe pollution and natural gas exports.
There may be valid reason for the confusion: He once called global warming an “existential threat” and urged a rapid transition to clean energy, Emma Dumain writes.
Fetterman’s unease with the pace of the transition has surfaced in recent comments. He suggested he could support killing an Environmental Protection Agency rule meant to cut vehicle emissions and help clear a path for a shift to electric vehicles.
The measure introduced by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho would block funding to implement the rule. EPA estimates that under the rule, 68 percent of new car sales will be electric vehicles in 2032.
“I haven’t even purchased [an EV], and I don’t anticipate purchasing one in the immediate future,” Fetterman told POLITICO’s E&E News in March, shortly after EPA released the rule. “I understand why we want to migrate more towards that, but at the end of the day, perhaps [the rule] might be overly aggressive.”
Fetterman has further frustrated environmental advocates such as the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club – which endorsed him while he was running for office – by questioning the Biden administration’s freeze on new export permits for deliveries of U.S. liquefied natural gas to non-free-trade-agreement countries.
Pennsylvania is the second largest natural-gas-producing state, behind only Texas, according to the Energy Information Administration.
“I’m not comfortable with the choices that [Fetterman] is making and the way that he is framing these issues,” said Liz Green Schultz, political director for the Pennsylvania-based Clean Air Action Fund, in reaction to the senator’s comments on the EPA clean car standard. “I don’t understand his motivations.”
