Environmental campaigners have slammed Donald Trump’s pick for running mate, Ohio Republican Senator J.D. Vance, saying that he is a climate change denier and a “Big Oil sell-out” who will strongly support continued fossil fuel production.
Trump announced on Monday that he had picked Vance, 39, once a critic of the former president but now a staunch supporter, to run for vice president on the GOP ballot in the November election.
Climate campaigners are alarmed by Vance’s track record of denying human-caused climate change, belittling renewable energy, and receiving donations from oil companies.
“Like Donald Trump, J.D. Vance has proven that he will make it a top priority to roll back climate protections while answering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs,” Sunrise Movement Communications Director, Stevie O’Hanlon, said in a statement.
“Vance is one of Congress’s biggest recipients of donations from oil companies,” O’Hanlon added.
The campaign group’s representative added that “J.D. Vance not only flip-flopped on supporting Trump, he flip-flopped on climate. He went from expressing concern about climate change before running for the Senate, to voting to gut EPA protections and denying that there even is a climate change crisis.”
“J.D. Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that’s Trump or the fossil fuel industry,” O’Hanlon said, adding that “J.D. Vance will empower Donald Trump to enact even worse damage on our planet in a second Trump administration.”
JL Andrepont of the climate group 350 Action commented, referring to Vance as a VP pick, “We must reject him and all climate deniers at the polls.”
Trump is expected to overturn or at least try to dismantle many of President Joe Biden’s energy and climate policies if the former president wins the November election. The Biden Administration’s methane rules, LNG export pause, EV mandates, federal oil and gas leasing, and even the Inflation Reduction Act could be all on the chopping block in a second Trump term in office.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
