To: Interested Parties
From: Megan Jacobs, Vice President of Paid Communications and Elections
Date: July 17, 2024
RE: What we’re watching for on night 3 of RNC

The extreme MAGA Republicans speaking at the RNC know they do not have a plan to address climate disasters and they continue to parrot the talking points directly from their Big Oil donors. So far, they have said very little about climate, environment, and clean energy, but that is expected to change tonight with a few speakers expected to echo Trump’s increasingly unhinged climate change denial and his debunked attacks on clean energy initiatives across the country. Here’s what you can expect to see tonight and the real story they don’t want to tell voters. 

Attacks on the Biden-Harris administration’s energy policy: 

Expect speakers like Sarah Phillips, a petroleum engineer, Governor Doug Burgum, and JD Vance to parrot Project 2025 and Trump’s extremist talking points about a “war on oil and natural gas” while ignoring the reality that the Biden administration’s affordable clean energy plan has already delivered over 300,000 clean energy jobs while providing more affordable and reliable clean energy like wind and solar power. 

After serving as the most anti-environmental president of all time, Donald Trump and his loyalists are once again determined to do the bidding of the Big Oil CEOs funding their campaigns by rolling back the historic climate progress made by the Biden-Harris administration. While working families across the country are benefiting from clean energy initiatives, Trump’s agenda could lead to thousands of workers being laid off, higher energy bills, and more pollution in our air and water. Absent from discussion is any mention of the existential threat of climate change or the impacts of extreme weather people are feeling right now. Instead, all we see are plans to strip away environmental protections and prioritize Big Oil’s wish list. 

In stark contrast, the Biden-Harris administration and Democrats in Congress have made more progress on climate and clean energy than any administration in history by prioritizing lowering energy costs, creating jobs and reducing pollution to protect public health. What’s more, these policies are far more popular than Trump’s agenda. Voters have repeatedly voiced their support for the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure law. Meanwhile, the more voters hear about Project 2025, the more concerned they become. 

JD Vance:

As we said earlier this week when he was announced as Trump’s running mate, unfortunately all we can expect from JD Vance is the same mix of extreme rhetoric and Big Oil talking points we already hear from Trump. He has a history of denying the science of climate change and has called solar a ‘fantasy’ and wind power ‘disgusting’ mimicking similarly unhinged comments made by Trump. Despite his rhetoric about protecting communities like East Palestine, OH, the truth is his actions have not lived up to his works. As a Senator he earned a 0% on LCV’s National Environmental Scorecard. He repeatedly attacks protections for clean air and water and has rebuked clean energy efforts and introduced legislation to rollback tax incentives for electric vehicles. He has praised the architects of Project 2025 (who have praised him right back), and the policies he and Trump supports could result in the loss of thousands of clean energy jobs. He has disagreed that fossil fuels were bad for the environment and actually called for increased production of fossil fuels. To make matters worse, he cozied up to Big Oil and even introduced legislation that would provide a tax credit for purchasing gas-powered vehicles.

Doug Burgum:

While Doug Burgum is sometimes portrayed as taking a different approach to carbon emissions than many of his Republican colleagues, the facts are that Governor Burgum has said, “The Biden Administration’s energy policies are ‘100% backwards,’” and supports the Project 2025 push for a much stronger reliance on polluting fossil fuels. Look for Burgum to embrace the “all of the above” approach to energy, but reserve his biggest praise for the oil industry.

East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment. 

The RNC has chosen to highlight the tragedy of this toxic train derailment despite the fact that this is, in reality, a story of failure due to corporate greed. In late June 2024, the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) released its comprehensive findings on the incident. The report emphasized that the derailment was primarily caused by mechanical failure exacerbated by inadequate maintenance practices. Additionally, Norfolk Southern has agreed to a settlement for the class action lawsuits regarding the train derailment. While this settlement offers a potential path forward for compensation, many community members are calling for additional time and information to review its terms thoroughly. Republicans will no doubt be attacking everyone but the corporations responsible. The extreme right-wing Project 2025 agenda–backed by both Trump and JD Vance—will not only give corporations free reign but also roll back crucial protections for clean air and water.

The fact is that we need stronger protections, not leaders who want to follow-through on Project 2025’s plan to dismantle the EPA and other agencies, and roll back the safeguards that protect communities and hold polluters accountable. Even the bipartisan legislation that Senators Sherrod Brown and JD Vance introduced together has stalled in Congress because of opposition from Vance’s own Republican party. A Trump-Vance administration could simply not be trusted to protect communities from these kinds of disasters. 

Expect Tim Conaway, the Mayor of East Palestine, Ohio to be critical of President Biden, but earlier this year, Conaway praised the Biden administration’s response, telling NPR: “you know, they stepped it up. I can’t say enough about Michael Regan, the head of the EPA. Always, if I need to call and ask something, it’s either him or Debra Shore. I can get on the phone and ask them, and, you know, they get right back to me. Pete Buttigieg is – every time I’ve needed something and I called, even if it was 7:30 on a Friday night, he calls and answered. You know, I could hear kids in the background and playing. And so, I mean, you know, he stepped up, and I appreciate things like that.”

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Paid for by LCV Victory Fund, www.lcvvictoryfund.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.