The Republican Party Platform Would Sink Our Planet--Literally

This year the Republican Party is holding its nominating convention in Ohio, a state that has experienced earthquakes, pollution, and other negative impacts from fracking. It’s a state with a governor – John Kasich – who has turned a blind eye to the impacts of fracking, and welcomed fracking waste from Pennsylvania by the truckloads.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that the Republican Party Platform takes us 180 degrees in the wrong direction on energy and the environment.

Through its coal-friendly goals and climate change-denying rhetoric, the platform declares war on the planet. If it became policy, the platform would accelerate global warming and expedite climate chaos, causing untold devastation to the planet and its people.

Among other things, the platform:

• Supports an “all of the above” approach to energy, granting states decision-making power over coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power, and the opening of additional public lands to drilling;
• Directly attacks the “keep it in the ground” movement, which is pushing to stop the extraction of fossil fuels on federal lands;
• Refers to coal as “an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource,” echoing talking points of industry;
• States “the free market” should determine which energy sources are extracted and used, when what we really need is World War II-scale mobilization to move our country to a 100% renewable energy powered economy;
• Calls for approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline and additional pipelines and that “American energy producers should be free to export their products to foreign markets”; and
• Urges reigning in the EPA and reducing regulation including prohibiting the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide.

If those gathering in Ohio care about the world that they are leaving to their children and grandchildren, they should reject these nonsensical positions on energy and join the Clean Energy Revolution.

These policies taken together, would be a disaster for our environment and the climate. We have urged both the RNC and DNC to take strong stands that ban fracking, keep fossil fuels in the ground, stop dirty and polluting energy projects, provide environmental justice for all, and ensure a quick, just, and equitable transition to a 100% renewable energy future.

All those who seek to elevate the call for a Clean Energy Revolution should join us and our partners from Americans Against Fracking and Pennsylvanians Against Fracking at the March for a Clean Energy Revolution in Philadelphia on July 24 – together, and for our planet and the people living on it.