Vice President Kamala Harris returns to Seattle on Tuesday to highlight the Biden administration’s action on climate change … and to raise campaign money, of course. Let’s focus on the former, not the latter.
Seattle is one of the most distant major cities in the continental United States from the nation’s capital. In fairness, all of the West Coast’s major cities are nearly equidistant from Washington, D.C. Such are the vagaries of historic geography.
But Seattle also is a relatively popular stop for presidents and vice presidents, especially Democrats who find a welcoming crowd in this progressive bastion. Donald Trump, a Republican, never visited as president. Harris was here just last fall, though it’s been a few years since President Joe Biden has put in an appearance. Perhaps with his reelection campaign underway, he’ll find time for a visit to rally support.
Harris is taking something of a victory lap on climate change measures. It was almost exactly a year ago that she cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates about $375 billion over a decade to promote clean-energy manufacturing and fight climate change.
The act includes money to extend tax credits for renewable energy, fund deployment of electric transmission lines and provide rebates for people who purchase electric cars. Those and other measures will reduce our state’s and the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases.
Washington knows well the need to combat climate change, and has been making strides toward investment in renewable energy and conservation. If record-setting heat waves aren’t convincing enough, throw in the devastating wildfires that have struck the state in recent years. For four years before Biden took office, federal action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for a warmer world was distinctly lacking.
Earth faces a climate emergency, even if Biden is unwilling to formally declare one. Harris, who hails from California, understands the deleterious effects that a warming world is having on Western states.
It’s always tough to go off official White House messaging, but when she speaks in Seattle, we hope she acknowledges just how bad things are even as she trumpets the administration’s efforts to fight climate change.
The post Welcome back to Seattle, Vice President Harris first appeared on Latest American News.
The post Welcome back to Seattle, Vice President Harris appeared first on Latest American News.