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Time for a thread about a topic that @KamalaHarris and @Mike_Pence could not be more different on: the environment.
Before you roll your eyes, we're gonna talk about corruption, justice, and gas stations. #BidenCoalition @United4Joe #Khive #VPDebate
@BenC00
Before you roll your eyes, we're gonna talk about corruption, justice, and gas stations. #BidenCoalition @United4Joe #Khive #VPDebate
@BenC00
Both candidates have lengthy records on the environment and they could not be more different. As an Attorney General and then Senator, Kamala Harris made environmental justice a focus of her career. As governor, Mike Pence, well, did the opposite.
We'll start with Pence. Pence was governor of Indiana and Indiana historically has some of the worst surface water in the United States. Not all of it is his fault, but him trying to reduce his state environmental department to a mere permitting office had ramifications.
Rumors abound that the federal EPA threatened to take over environmental protection from the state of Indiana due to horrid status of its water.
For example, the city of East Chicago has a lead problem on par if not worse than Flint Michigan. The mayor of East Chicago begged for an emergency to be called so as to get the resources to protect his citizens from lead poisoning.
Pence had already okay'd a few hundred thousand dollars to provide support for the city and proceeded to ignore the cry for help. For the record, no level of lead exposure is considered safe for children. The next Indiana governor declared a state of emergency almost immediately.
While Pence was notorious for not pursuing environmental enforcement, there was a mysterious exception.
Pence's family ran a series of gas stations throughout the midwest. In 2004 they began to experience a rapid financial decline. This left gas stations leaking pollution into the ground.
Pence is an anti-government ideologue but seemed to have no trouble making the state of Indiana pay for the messes leftover from his family's gas stations. He extended the amount of money the state could spend cleaning up these gas stations, reducing the costs for his family.
Mike Pence and his family failed to clean up the pollution from their gas stations, which have now cost Indiana taxpayers over 21 million dollars to clean up.
Pence is a staunch enemy of any action on climate change. He is a huge climate change denier despite the fact the west is burning, we are running out of hurricane names, and the data from the IPCC makes it clear we are in an emergency.
He is literally running against the view of young republicans on climate change. https://www.vox.com/2019/11/25/20981768/climate-change-pew-opinion-poll-republicans-ok-boomer
This is in stark contrast to Kamala Harris who has a strong environmental record. I'm sure @RL_Miller will have some opinions on this and I will say I defer to her corrections on what I am about to say.
Kamala has a really strong record overall on climate. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11082020/kamala-harris-joe-biden-election-2020-climate-change
She created the first environmental justice unit for the state of California. So in contrast to Pence who let poor people be poisoned by lead and let polluters get away with the bank, Kamala fought to protect people.
Communities of color and the poor experience the majority of pollution in this country. She has introduced legislation to strengthen and pursue environmental justice.
As California attorney general, she confronted the fossil fuel industry by opposing Chevron's proposed refinery expansion in Richmond, a majority Black and Hispanic city that has waged a long battle against pollution at the Chevron site.
Harris also sued the Southern California Gas Co. over a massive methane blowout from an underground storage facility on the outskirts of Los Angeles, citing the climate threat posed by the uncontrolled emissions of the super-potent greenhouse gas.
Harris lent her support to a coalition of AGs who vowed to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable in the wake of disclosures showing ExxonMobil understood the magnitude of climate change for decades but mislead the public about the catastrophic consequences. #ExxonKnew
"Let's get them not only in the pocketbook, but let's make sure there are severe and serious penalties for their behaviors," she told Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/10/kamala-harris-climate-investigation/
Kamala wants to direct the Department of Justice to launch an investigation of fossil fuel companies. "They are causing harm and death in communities. And there has been no accountability," she said. You see this reflected in the Biden-Harris plan.
This is a good time to recommend checking out the Biden-Harris plan for environmental justice. https://joebiden.com/environmental-justice-plan/
and of course the plan for clean energy https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/
Basically, Vice President Pence is against addressing the greatest existential crisis of our time, let poor communities of color be poisoned by lead and was terrible about pursuing environmental enforcement while making the state pay for his families mistakes.
Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a staunch ally to the climate and environmental movements and has a long history of fighting for environmental justice. Frankly, when I saw Kamala added to the ticket, I was psyched. #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction 
Now I'll add some personal details. I was a grad student at the @IUONeillSchool while Pence was governor. I had fellow students who interned and worked in the Indiana state government while he was there.
The overall impression of him was of a rigid ideologue who was largely uninterested in governing except for you know, going after gay people and controlling women's' bodies. This rigidity nearly cost the economy of Indiana major employers like Salesforce.
There's a good reason the republican party of Indiana wanted him gone.
In comparison, my interactions with Kamala's senate office were spectacular. She cosponsored the Green New Deal Resolution in the Senate. She got that climate change was an existential crisis.
In comparison, my interactions with Kamala's senate office were spectacular. She cosponsored the Green New Deal Resolution in the Senate. She got that climate change was an existential crisis.
