A Tipping Point for the Defeat of Fossil Fuels? How to Stop Big Energy in Its Tracks (Quite Literally)

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A Tipping Point for the Defeat of Fossil Fuels?
How to Stop Big Energy in Its Tracks (Quite Literally)
By Richard Lachmann, Michael Schwartz, and Kevin A. Young

As Donald Trump gave in to the demand that the transition process to the Biden years officially begin, the administration and its fossil-fuel allies doubled down on their efforts to implement destructive environmental policies that President Biden might try to reverse. Those initiatives have included a campaign to jump-start oil drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; the approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the long-delayed Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in Minnesota; and a push by utility companies to obtain funding and permits for the construction of 235 gas-fired power plants, each with a 30-year life expectancy.

In response, horrified progressives have sought to pressure the president-elect to appoint officials committed to blocking these and other similar projects. But the strategy of pressuring leading Democrats hasn’t worked particularly well for environmentalists in the past and doesn’t seem to be working now. Despite the movement’s full-court press for a real environmentalist presence in the administration, Biden designated Congressman Cedric Richmond as his “liaison” with that very movement. Richmond voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline and, among Democrats in the House, he was the fifth-largest recipient of fossil-fuel cash.

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