Democratic Party Backtracking on Climate Change

THE FXBG ADVANCE THURSDAY 7/30/36 MIDDAY READ

By Jeff Eastland, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR

Development site in Stafford County/Jeff Eastland

The current Democratic party has now embraced a new form of climate action—that is, virtually no climate action at all. Instead, their approach is now being framed as “Energy Affordability.”

Since I became a climate activist in 1970, the Democrats have always always the pro-environment party. For a brief initial period the issue was bipartisan following the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, and all the resultant bipartisan landmark legislation protecting the health of our citizens and the environment.

However, beginning in 1981 as corporations, particularly the fossil fuel industry, various administrations, lobbyists, think tanks, and the judicial system began to chip away at those hard earned environmental and regulatory gains, the Democratic party stood firm as a bulwark against that rollback effort.

Until now, as the Democratic party has begun framing their climate action through the very fossil fuel companies that along with Big Tech are behind the current Data Center boom that is destroying our landscapes, our essential wetlands, our watersheds and aquifers, and our quality of life and our health.

The simple reason for the politicians avoiding climate action? Their own electability.

It is a serious mistake.

This retreat from being associated with climate action, which I have noted in so-called “progressive” Democratic legislators as well, is indicative of the newly-found acquiescence to the current administration policies and the powers that be: From the federal government, down to the Virginia state government, right down to our local officials in Stafford County who look primarily at the supposed tax revenue gained from the data center corporations.

To be fair, there are a few Dems left in the actual fight. But far too few.

We are making way too many concessions in land. water, and power use to the absentee international corporations, Big Tech companies, the fossil fuel companies, and the politicians who stand to benefit from their largesse. From my perspective, it is a woefully sad thing to see.

Unless there is an awakening, and an effort at course correction, and soon, I foresee a grim and difficult future.

Delaware Senator Chris Coons, the co-chair of the Senate’s bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, is one of the Democrats I’m talking about.

“[Climate] is an issue that I think we need to continue to engage on and speak out on and work to legislate on, but it’s not a top three issue right now,” he told POLITICO recently. “Let’s put it this way: American voters clearly didn’t give the Biden-Harris administration and Democrats the credit we hoped they would for transformational investments in energy, and that sent a signal to Trump that he could reverse, defund or cut lots of investments in new energy generation, grid stability, energy research, new energy sources for the United States.”

In other words: While climate legislation didn’t lose Democrats the election, it didn’t not lose it, either.

Sen. Brian Schatz, perhaps the Democrats’ most articulate orator on climate right now, is also preaching a message of affordability.

“The way to victory is to talk about price,” the Hawaii Democrat said at a New York Times event last month. “You could talk about the planetary emergency and mitigation and adaptation, and you could throw in some environmental justice rhetoric, and by the time you’re done talking, people think you don’t care about them.”

Then there’s Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who campaigned on regulating fracking more stringently, but signed legislation in November 2025 formally removing his state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative—the first mandatory market based cap and invest program, multi-state cooperative effort designed to limit carbon dioxide emissions. He said it was necessary to resolve a prolonged state budget impasse, citing concerns about grid operation and energy costs.

Shapiro’s decision to exit the northeastern cap-and-trade system made him the first Democratic governor to withdraw a state from the compact.

Another Democratic governor, New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill, had previously criticized past Democratic messaging for giving the impression that clean energy is prohibitively expensive, even though it’s not: solar and wind are much cheaper now that fossil fuels. Since her election, though, she has pivoted her focus to freezing utility rates and reforming electric grids to lower energy costs.

On a local level, this past year I met Tim Cywinski, a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives for Virginia’s 1st Congressional District, at a Climate Lobby day in Richmond. Tim has good political chops, and an environmental background. He is communications director for the state chapter of the Sierra Club. Tim is very popular with younger voters and it is easy to see why. He is young, personable, knowledgeable, intelligent, informed, and seemingly committed.

Not long after, I attended a small political rally for Tim in Spotsylvania where a local activist asked him why his website made no mention of climate or protecting the environment. His answer? He didn’t want to be pigeonholed as an environmentalist.

***

Jeff Eastland is a retired antique dealer, lifetime activist and writer, and one-time Environmental Studies major. He lives on a seven-acre farm in farm that is a certified Wildlife Habitat in Stafford, Virginia. You can find an earlier version of this essay on his substack HERE.