Every week brings a new headline about the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress repealing climate protections. The latest is a shocking proposal to overturn the landmark scientific finding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger American public safety and health, which underpins most U.S. climate regulation.
No other democracy in the world faces such assault on climate science and policy. The huge costs are evident in the increasingly devastating and expensive U.S. weather disasters, like this summer’s Texas floods that killed more than 100 American citizens.
At some point, we must ask ourselves: How have our politics become so distorted that a plurality of Americans voted for a president and a Republican Party who have consistently repealed dozens of key climate protections?
The honest answer is that all elements of American politics — right, center and left — share some of the blame. Fortunately for Democrats, there is a new recognition in the aftermath of the 2024 election toward promoting an “abundance economy,” including building new, cleaner energy projects through permitting reform in Congress.
No doubt anti-science tactics by the GOP are the primary driver of climate policy distortion. Sadly, they have become a key part of the MAGA culture war political strategy that is dividing the country and preventing needed climate action. Starting with President Trump, Republicans have routinely put forward completely false assertions regarding climate policy and science, and have even deliberately undermined America’s ability to protect its citizens from extreme weather disasters.
At the same time, huge numbers of voters have been convinced to support Republican politicians because many Americans are also turned off and dismayed by the radicalism of the far-left environmental movement — in particular, the untrue supposition that fossil fuels must be banned immediately, with its perceived implication of undermining average citizens’ ability to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle.
These tactics have scared tens of millions of Americans into the false view that Democrats are trying to ban fossil fuels. Yet Democrats themselves have not adequately distanced themselves from fossil fuel prohibitionists, or drawn clear lines on key issues.
For example, advances over the last 15 years have substantially increased U.S. natural gas production, cutting energy prices while directly allowing a massive reduction in emissions from coal. But Democrats often appear defensive on the issue and have too often ceded climate leadership to far-left climate groups that take unreasonable positions like banning gas, a position most Americans oppose. In fact, nearly 70 percent of Americans, including a strong majority of Democrats, support natural gas production, along with expanding renewable energy.
As former President Obama noted in 2014, America produces “more natural gas than anyone — and nearly everybody’s energy bill is lower because of it. So are our carbon emissions that cause climate change.”
But using natural gas does require the U.S. to undertake deeper reductions in fugitive emissions from methane, which most in the gas industry support. Cuts in methane can limit .3 degrees Celsius of temperature rise by 2050, preventing three times more warming by mid-century than cutting carbon dioxide alone. Unfortunately, the Trump administration just announced this month that it will delay implementation of methane regulations. Avoiding an outright repeal of the methane limits must be a key goal.
To gain greater popular support necessary to prevent climate disasters, Democrats need new approaches ruthlessly based on limiting rising near-term temperatures — not ideological litmus tests. Leading Democrats, including those running for president in 2028, should forcefully attack Trump’s climate repeals and the economically damaging rollbacks of clean energy incentives that are handing hundreds of thousands of jobs and trillions in revenue to China.
But that is not enough. To win back the White House and Congress, Democrats must offer new ways to discuss climate that makes it clear that they value the economic benefits of traditional energy, as Obama did, even as they support new clean energy production that is the future. Democratic candidates must have the guts to challenge unreasonable interest groups on all sides, including the far-left wing of the climate lobby that has played a major role in delaying reasonable climate progress by taking extreme positions. And Democrats must be far tougher on China, whose emissions are still larger than those of the U.S.
In Congress, the immediate opportunity is federal permitting reform. Support for a few natural gas pipelines in exchange for more clean project approvals and additional interstate clean energy transmission lines is a decent deal for Democrats. Building new electricity infrastructure is especially crucial now as tech data centers are driving up demand and raising prices. Voters will blame Democrats if they are perceived to be preventing new electricity production, just as they are beginning to blame Republicans for cutting renewable sources that can also ease prices.
The time for ideology on climate is over. Neither the far right nor far left should define the terms of climate politics and policy. Democrats must focus relentlessly on that fact that climate action is about protecting citizens, reducing costs and creating good jobs. If they do, climate action will again become a winning issue for Democrats, helping to protect America now and for generations to come.
Paul Bledsoe is a professorial lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy. He served on the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton.
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