Oil lobby isn’t gassed about Biden’s new climate plan
Petroleum industry groups already finding fault with Democratic candidate’s ambitious clean-energy mandate
The oil and gas sector is not thrilled with several parts of Joe Biden’s new climate plan.
Petroleum industry representatives are arguing the former vice president’s plan to mandate a transition from gas-fired power to renewables will hasten the ongoing decline of union jobs and add to the strife the industry is already feeling due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But at the same time, oil and gas industry representatives are choosing their words carefully, preparing for a new political landscape if Biden wins the presidential election, and aiming to still have a seat at the table when it comes to crafting federal climate policy.
On Tuesday, Biden laid out his ideas for addressing the dangerous buildup of climatewarming pollution as he continues to poll ahead both nationally and in key swing states against President Donald Trump, beset by the still out-ofcontrol viral spread and the resulting economic recession.
“We’re really looking for areas to work with the Biden campaign. We’re going to be looking for areas to work with the Trump administration, and with both parties in Congress,” said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s biggest lobbying group.
“The one constant is: We are going to work with whoever the policymakers are that are in charge,” he said.
Biden’s climate plan would require electric utilities to adopt cleaner energy. The oil and gas industry doesn’t like that mandate.
The presumptive Democratic nominee is embracing a 15-year timeline for a 100 percent clean-electricity standard to cut climate-warming emissions from power generation.
To meet that aggressive goal, he wants to impose requirements on electricity providers to get all of their energy from cleaner sources — including wind, solar, nuclear or hydroelectric stations — by 2035.
Such a plan would cut considerably into gas-fired power plants’ share of the electricity mix, which today constitutes more than a third of the market. Only gas-fired generators that captured their carbon dioxide — still a fledgling technological endeavor — would qualify under Biden’s cleanenergy standard.
The lobby group is arguing that the renewable energy sector largely lacks union representation, and that Biden’s proposed transition would result in lower pay for bluecollar workers.
Pointing to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, API notes the average annual pay for gas and oil extraction workers was $91,000 in 2018 — about twice that for solar panel installers and about 60 percent higher than the mean salary for a wind turbine technician.
The Trump campaign echoed that sentiment about union jobs. Hogan Gidley, the campaign’s national press secretary, called Biden’s plan “a socialist manifesto” that would “eliminate jobs in the coal, oil or natural gas industries.”
Kathleen Sgamma, head of the Western Energy Alliance, likened Biden’s clean-energy proposal to a “government fiat,” noting the new plan was born in part out of a task force made up of allies of Biden and liberal firebrand Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
“Like the Green New Deal, the Biden-Sanders task force recommendations generate alarmism about climate change while envisioning a radical remaking of the energy sector and hence, the economy,” Sgamma said.
API also opposes a key piece of Biden’s plan to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector — a rebate for drivers who trade in traditional internal-combustion vehicles powered by their products for electric ones.
Macchiarola argued that most of the benefit of such a subsidy would go to high-income car buyers.
“It’s bad energy policy, it’s bad economic policy,” he said.
Despite the criticism, Biden’s plan is garnering praise from workers’ groups.
Biden won over several labor unions by including in his climate plan requirements on developers to pay prevailing wages and use union workers.
That and other moves let Biden mend the rift that had developed between labor unions and advocates of the Green New Deal.
Even if Biden wins, much of his climate plan would require legislation from Congress — a tall order even if Democrats take back the Senate in addition to the White House.