Climate Hawks Join the Debate on Ukraine

In 2010, David Roberts, an influential left-leaning journalist and blogger, coined the term “climate hawk” to refer to activists pushing for aggressive solutions to the dangers of climate change.

“For better or worse,” he wrote, “more Americans respond to evocations of toughness in the face of a threat.”

The label caught on — and “climate hawk” has since become a badge worn proudly by a nucleus of politically savvy climate-action advocates. And now, days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading climate hawks sense that the moment is ripe to connect the war to their cause.

“America is lining Putin’s pockets by buying billions of dollars of Russian oil,” Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat of Massachusetts and an architect of the Green New Deal, said in an interview. “The United States doesn’t need Russian oil any more than we need Russian caviar.”

Adding to the feeling of urgency: As the war began, a United Nations climate panel issued a landmark report detailing the catastrophic impacts of global warming, which include floods, deadly heat waves and extreme water scarcity that could affect millions.

“This whole crisis points out the need for us to wean ourselves and the rest of the world off fossil fuels,” Tom Steyer, a billionaire former presidential candidate and major Democratic donor, said in an interview.

He added: “How many wars have we been in, in countries that have deep relationships with fossil fuels? How many times have we seen this incredible volatility related to fossil fuels?”

The climate hawks are in temporary alignment with foreign policy hawks, who also worry about importing oil and gas from unstable and undemocratic parts of the world — but for different reasons. The two groups agree on cutting off Putin’s energy lifeline, but that’s about it. And it’s not clear which way the White House, with gasoline prices surging past $4 a gallon, will go.

There are various ideas floating around Capitol Hill for cutting off energy imports of Russian energy, all of which got a boost on Monday when lawmakers agreed on a legislative framework to do so.

What happens next is where the agreement starts to break down. To vastly oversimplify, Capitol Hill divides into two basic camps on how to replace the Russian oil.

On one side is a bipartisan group led by two senators from fossil fuel-producing states: Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who have recruited Republicans and many moderate Democrats to their bill implementing the Russian cutoff.

On the other side are the climate hawks: Markey, Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and many progressive Democrats in the House. Last week, Markey and Heinrich unveiled their alternate proposal for banning Russian energy imports: the SPIGOT (Severing Putin’s Immense Gains from Oil Transfers) Act. Unlike Manchin and Murkowski’s legislation, their bill requires the U.S. to replace Russian imports with renewable energy over time.

Some quirkier ideas have emerged. Bill McKibben, an activist close to the administration, is calling on President Biden to use the Defense Production Act to ramp up the manufacture of heat pumps — highly energy-efficient, all-in-one heating and cooling units — and ship them to Europe.

“We could peacefully punch Putin in the kidneys,” McKibben wrote in his Substack newsletter.

The White House’s dilemma

Biden has stacked his administration with climate hawks, and has put forward ambitious policies to rein in carbon emissions and move the country toward renewable, clean energy.

But Ukraine’s crisis is testing that.

White House officials say that over the long run, the world needs to move past fossil fuels. But, with oil prices already touching $130 a barrel, they don’t want to further roil the markets.

So, administration officials are scouring the world to replace Russia’s oil output. There are no easy choices: Iran (which is under economic sanctions), Venezuela (also under sanctions) and Saudi Arabia (which is angry with the U.S. for various reasons) have been floated as possibilities.

But as he worries about gas prices, Biden also has to worry about the left. Progressives criticized him last week for saying little about climate change in his State of the Union address. The bulk of his climate agenda was blocked when Mr. Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona torpedoed the Build Back Better Act, Democrats’ social policy bill. Democrats fear that could leave young voters who turned out for Biden in 2020 demoralized in 2022.

Steyer, who founded a group that mobilizes young voters around climate issues, says he is optimistic that Biden will be able to cut a deal with Congress. “Over the rest of this year, I’m expecting to see concrete actions that will support a robust climate response and give young people a reason to turn out,” he said.

The Republican squeeze play

Even as Republicans urge Biden to stop importing Russian energy, they’re redoubling their political messaging blaming him for high gasoline prices. And they’re demanding for him to “unleash” energy production in the United States.

Republicans’ arguments are hollow, experts tell us. The surge in global economic activity as the coronavirus pandemic ebbs is the main factor driving up gasoline prices, not Biden’s energy policies. Domestic production of crude oil actually increased in 2021. The limits Biden has placed on drilling on federal lands don’t affect current production. And, as the White House has pointed out, the industry is sitting on thousands of unused drilling permits.

Allies of the administration note, too, that even though Russia may be a minor supplier for the U.S., it exports around 5 million barrels of crude oil a day. Because oil prices are set globally, taking all of that off the market would send prices soaring. Biden can’t just flip a switch and replace Russian oil. It takes months to ramp up domestic production, and in any case he has little say over the market decisions of private companies.

“People think presidents have more control over the price of oil than they actually do,” said Samantha Gross, an energy analyst at the Brookings Institution.

None of which loosens the political vise the White House finds itself in. The bank J.P. Morgan has predicted that oil prices could jump more than 30 percent — reaching as high as $185 dollars a barrel — if buyers keep shunning Russian oil, ban or no ban. And Republicans aren’t likely to cut Biden a break if and when that happens.

Populists: Go after the oil companies

Politically, high oil prices are a nightmare. They make it difficult for Democrats to promote their stewardship of the economy, because they must temper any boasts about the fast growth in jobs and GDP on their watch with expressions of concern for the real pinch that many Americans are feeling.

Climate hawks propose a way out of this jam: Democrats should brand themselves as the party of future, not the past, they say. That means unapologetically embracing new technologies like electric vehicles while portraying oil as yesterday’s energy solution.

“Instead of ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ voters should hear: ‘Plug in, baby, plug in,’” Markey said.

And he rejects the advice some pundits have offered Biden: a Jimmy Carter-like call for national sacrifice at a time of crisis abroad.

“We’re not calling for sacrifice; we’re calling for innovation,” he said.

Tom Matzzie, a former Washington campaign director for MoveOn.org, who now runs a company that builds solar farms, suggested Biden go after the oil companies, emphasizing any ties they have to Russia and investigating “war profiteering” they might be doing.

“They’re trying to take advantage of the situation in Ukraine and pretend they have a solution when they don’t,” Matzzie said, of the companies that are calling on Biden to repeal a moratorium on drilling on federal land.

Others worry that high oil prices will push Americans into embracing fossil fuels at the very moment they should be shifting away from them as fast as possible. Facing the prospect of a disastrous midterms, Democrats could follow suit.

“Mixing up the difference between a short- and a long-term response would be an absolute failure for us intellectually,” Steyer said. “And a horrible decision for us as a country.”

What to read

• Fears are growing that thousands of civilians are in danger as Russia escalates its assault on Ukraine. Follow our live coverage here.

• Jennifer Schuessler profiles Sam Adler-Bell and Matthew Sitman, the hosts of “Know Your Enemy,” a podcast billed as “the leftist’s guide to the conservative movement.”

• Without waiting for the Supreme Court’s forthcoming ruling that could overturn Roe v. Wade, Republican-led states are engaged in a “frenzy” of legislative activity to shut down access to abortion, Kate Zernike writes.

HOW THEY RUN

Hawks on parade

Three events this week are showing that the Trump wing of the Republican Party and its old guard still have some work to do on the whole unity thing.

Tonight, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, one of the most hawkish members of Congress on national security, is due to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. He’s expected to give a full-throated defense of Donald Trump’s foreign policy, just two days after the former president called for bombing Russia using U.S. jets disguised as Chinese and praised Kim Jong-un, the totalitarian North Korean leader.

On Friday, Mike Pompeo is scheduled to speak at a dairy farm in Donahue, Iowa, for an event sponsored by his political action committee. The former secretary of state has been a nonstop critic of Biden’s national security moves, and a loyal Trump defender.

In pre-Trump times, you might see the likes of Cotton and Pompeo at the American Enterprise Institute’s World Forum in Sea Island, Georgia, a traditional gathering of Republican foreign policy leaders that is taking place this week.

Instead, A.E.I. is hosting Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, along with one of the Biden administration’s most prominent climate hawks: Brian Deese, the president's top economic adviser.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

— Blake & Leah