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WASHINGTON – Senator Kamala Harris of California on Wednesday issued a new ambitious climate change plan calling for $ 10 trillion in spending over a decade to combat human-induced global warming and introduce a new climate change plan. tax or levy on companies that emit greenhouse gases.
Harris unveiled her plan just hours before an event at the town hall on global warming, to which 10 Democratic candidates should attend. This is the first time in a presidential campaign that the question of what to do about the heating planet deserves its place. its main forum on prime time television.
Harris's announcement comes a day after the climate plans of three other candidates, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the main rival of the bid, were released.
Ms. Harris, a former California Attorney General, has been touted as a highly qualified chief prosecutor, who would maximize the power of the justice system to punish polluting companies and deliver justice to poor communities who suffer disproportionately from the consequences. climate change, such as floods, heat waves, and food and water shortages.
"The climate is obviously an important issue for voters in the Democratic primary, and the candidates are reacting," said Robert Shrum, an experienced Democratic consultant and director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of New York. Southern California.
Many of the candidates' projects, including that of Ms. Harris, are similar to the proposals championed by Governor Jay of Washington, who has focused his presidential campaign on the fight against climate change. dropped last month after it became apparent that he was unlikely to qualify for the next primary debate.
Mr Inslee was also not invited to the climate change forum after failing to obtain 2% support in four eligible polls. But analysts said Inslee's influence over the rest of the Democratic presidential field was obvious.
"Jay Inslee has written a series of climate policy options, and candidates are inspired by ideas inspired by Inslee," said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based non-partisan research organization. .
Mr. Inslee has published six detailed climate plans, totaling more than 200 pages. He said he hoped that they would help to "enhance the ambition" of the climate policies of other candidates. Since then, he has spoken with several candidates about how to incorporate his ideas into their projects, said his former campaign spokesman, Jared Leopold.
On Tuesday night, Warren released a new comprehensive climate change plan – her third plan for the campaign – in which she explicitly adopted some of Inslee's policies. "Even if her presidential campaign is over, her ideas should remain at the center of the agenda," Warren wrote.
Three other Democratic presidential candidates – Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Julián Castro, the former Housing Secretary, have also released plans to fight climate change since Sunday.
Ms. Harris' plan includes many of the basic political elements identical to those of her rivals: a plan to end the fossil fuel pollution associated with the production of electricity by 2030, a stopping new fossil fuel leases on public lands and the imposition of new aggressive regulations for vehicles. pollution of the exhaust pipes.
Environmental policy experts have noted that Ms Harris's advocacy on promoting climate change policy is meager, despite being one of the early supporters of the Green New Deal. But they said its goal of using the courts as a powerful tool to impose concrete greenhouse gas reductions could be effective, given that Congress has failed to do so.
"She's going to throw the book to the climate," Book said. "It could be a way to take on the challenge of making radical new changes with laws that are decades old."
In her new proposal, Warren adopts Inslee's plan to eliminate global warming emissions from power plants, vehicles and buildings over a 10-year period, and add $ 1 trillion in additional spending to subsidize this transition. Expenditures would be paid, she said, by canceling Trump's tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations.
Like Inslee 's proposal, his plan would establish a by – law to put coal – fired plants out of service 10 years from now, but also to fund the health care and retirement of miners. coal. It would create new federal exhaust emissions regulations for light duty vehicles, trucks and new buses by 2030.
Mr. Castro's plan also includes several ideas adopted directly or developed in consultation with Mr. Inslee, such as a plan to replace all coal-fired electricity generation with zero-emission sources. by 2030 and a proposal to mobilize $ 10 trillion in federal funds. , public, local and private spending on the transition from polluting to non-polluting energy.
Also at least some echoes of Mr. Inslee's proposals are included in Mr. Booker's plan, which provides $ 3 trillion in spending to achieve a carbon-neutral economy by 2045, and in Ms. Plan's plan. Klobuchar, who advocates the reinstatement of the rules of the Obama era. on fossil fuel emissions to put the country on the path to a carbon – neutral economy by 2050.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a rival of Mrs. Warren on the left, did not explicitly echo Mr. Inslee's ideas. Instead, analysts said that he was trying to win the Democratic Party's progressive wing with a climate plan that takes its name from the Green New Deal and has the highest price of any candidate proposals: $ 16.3 billion over 15 years. He called for the ban on fracking for extracting natural gas and stopping imports and exports of coal, oil and natural gas.
"I think Sanders is looking for ways to prove he is the true progressives of the race," said Paul Bledsoe, speaker at the Center for Environmental Policy at the American University.
Mr Bledsoe said the Wednesday night forum could also be an opportunity for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to restore his crest. Biden's $ 1.7-billion spending plan for 10 years has first appealed to environmental activists. But he was attacked by other candidates during the second democratic debate to not be ambitious enough.
Polls show that climate change is a growing concern among voters.
Voters also believe that the US is not doing enough to fight climate change: 67 percent of voters said more needs to be done.
Republican officials said the plans developed by the Democrats to fight climate change would decimate the economy.
Mandy Gunasekara, former political adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration, described the Democrats' plans as socialist takeovers of the economy.
"Most Americans who talk about climate change, when you ask them," O.K., how much are you willing to pay, "is minimal, if not zero. These multi-billion dollar plans that each of them has put in place require some honesty, "she said.
Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for President Trump's campaign for re-election, wrote in an email, "The radical energy democrats' approach is to eliminate the use of all fuels. fossils, which would kill more than 10 million jobs and cause an economic disaster across the country. country."
Mr Bledsoe said that there was a political danger for Democrats to try to outdo themselves.
"In all honesty, each of the proposed climate plans is more ambitious than anything that had been considered far before," he said. "But the danger is that they ignore the workings of alternative states' energy policies and risk putting Trump back to the polls."
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