WikiLeaks Show Clinton’s Lack of Concern on Climate Change

Wikileaks recently released emails about Hillary Clinton’s campaign team’s focus on climate change, even if they do not have a concrete plan to solve it.

The Hacked email account of John Podesta shows Clinton’s energy policy once she reached the White House. The phrase “climate change” comes up in more than 1,200 emails, more than Obamacade, or the ISIS extremist and the Levant combined. A certain person named “sanders” also had come up in over 1,444 emails.

Clinton’s energy proposal have not been clear than Bernie Sanders’ call to ban fracking, or Donald Trump’s plan to put coal miners back to their jobs. Hacked emails suggest that Clinton’s team to be more driven by policy, but contradict with its election promises more than realistic proposals.

The federal ethanol mandate has failed to deliver its commitment as natural gas releases more methane pollution. Recent poll shows more people support taxation of carbon, her advisers fret, while politicians focus more on creating policy on reducing carbon output.

Clinton’s team’s unrealistic position to quickly end oil drilling has been supported by green groups and Sanders supporters, not considering U.S. imports increased and improved because of the oil boom.

Several emails also show Clinton being choreographed by aides before she revealed her position to the Keystone XL oil pipeline last year.

A hacked email contains how Obama and Clinton want the left to push her.

In 2012, President Barack Obama accepted the call for his re-election. He also reminded liberals dissatisfied with his record at that point that it was their duty to lobby him. Calling for “shared responsibility”, they cheered Obama as he spent significant political capital on global warming, regulating power plants and ratifying the Paris climate deal.

In one email, Clinton privately told union members that anti-fossil fuel protesters should “get a life.”

Josh Schwerin, Clinton’s aide suggested in one communication to slam Martin O’Malley for urging an end to all fossil-fuel by 2050. Podesta responded to commit for a massive cut in greenhouse gasses, “close to a zero carbon energy sector.”

Lucky Waletzky, Clinton’s campaign donor said she has “a lot of confidence” that Clinton would put an end to the fracking problem. Clinton also often pledges to restrict and end fracking, however, given the breadth of industry and GOP support, it looks like it’s “not going to happen.”

Bill McKibben, a top leader of the climate protest movement added that hacked emails contain no surprise and urge the green activists to keep up the fight after Election Day. This week he also wrote in The Nation, “The honeymoon won’t last 10 minutes; on November 9 we’ll be organizing for science and human rights and against the timid incrementalism that marks her approach.”

Hacked emails also show Clinton’s careful approach to issues concerning the public, avoiding split public opinion, and avoiding issues that could end future deals.

Interesting, Clinton shows her strong stance about regulating ethanol, but on two emails shows that her campaign team are working harder to keep its options open.

White House climate adviser Dan Utech advised Clinton’s aides in April 2015 to talk about “making the [ethanol rule] more effective,” Podesta copied that careful phrase in the “the reform graph.”

Dan Schwerin, Clinton’s aide proposed to leave a “maximum flexibility down the road.” After a month, he forwarded a news report about “Clinton’s Mend-It-Don’t-End-It” ethanol strategy and added: “I’d say we successfully ‘threaded the needle’ yet again!”

On recent poll, it shows majority of voters want an immediate action on climate change. However Podesta told Clinton’s policy director Jake Sullivan that they “have done extensive polling on carbon tax,” he added, “it all sucks.”

Other emails also show Podesta planning to promote climate-hawkish policies.

Environmental lawyer Richard Ayres sends Podesta a summary of a legal battle to temporarily suspend federal coal leasing program in order to subject it to a new environmental review. Obama’s administration took 10 months to totally review the proceedings, while Clinton keeps her neutral stand that angered the coal industry whose workers she struggled to woo.

An email also shows Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp thanked Podesta “for reaching out” on methane issues, which they used for style deal-making on energy policy.

Last year during government funding talks, Republican Representatives questioned their push to revoke the decades-old ban on crude oil exports.

Environmentalists said that this policy is more of a way-out for the industry. But Clinton shows she is neutral to allow it, if agreements could achieve “the right balance.” In some emails, she barely changes her stand even after Congress and the White House broke a deal that lifted the ban and included a 5-year extension and end green-energy tax credits.

In some of her speeches, Clinton shows support on geopolitical benefits of gas exports. Her comment on export-for-tax-credits deal shows that she intendse to cut more bargains on that issue if she wins the election.

In February 2014, at the University of Miami, Clinton said, “I’m not crazy about the consequences of natural gas with the release of methane but it is replacing coal.”

On the same year, she also said in a San Diego law firm “now, that is a tremendous opportunity, as long as we are smart about it,” she added, “and we have to start by being smart about making sure we extract oil and gas in ways that don’t destroy water tables, leak methane into the air, undermine the quality of life for people who live near the wells.”

As her campaign staff struggles to prevent a rebellion among building trade unions that supports Keystone, Clinton ignored activists’ fight to block Dakota Access Pipeline, whose fate has become a much bigger concern in the oil industry than Keystone.

Clinton’s outreach director, Nikki Budzinski told her colleagues in February to draft a pipeline policy that would avoid her falling to a trap especially on the project-by-project grassroots lobbying strategy that green groups have used against fossil fuel infrastructure.

“She has privately told the building trades that she does not oppose pipelines,” Budzinski wrote. “Can we outline instances where a pipeline would have her support?”

However, Clinton never released a blanket statement regarding the pipeline concern, but she pushed for repair and replacement of aging fossil-fuel infrastructure.

Hacked emails and her contradicting statements suggest that if she wins this election, that won’t be enough to pacify environmental activists, disappointed oil and gas industry or concerned labor unions.

The American Petroleum Institute expressed their disappointment after Podesta cites its “very negative reaction” to the May 2015 release of three years’ worth of proposed regulatory targets on ethanol.

Podesta also mentioned the group of “really problematic” oil and gas advisers, who carried largely establishment ties, in April 2015.

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