States with poor climate policy ‘overlap’ with those seeking to limit rights, Kamala Harris says in defense of EPA’s record on pollution
By Ben Pershing
26 Sept 2017
US Senator Kamala Harris, a Democratic presidential aspirant, has told the Guardian that the Trump Administration’s poor climate policies are the “overlap” between environmental extremists who want to ban coal plants and those who want to restrict the rights of corporations.
Harris, who is also running for US Senate in California, made her remarks in defense of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which Trump has taken to revoking a number of key regulations. Harris is seeking a seat in the Senate in the 2018 mid-term elections. Last year, she gave an impassioned defence of climate science, arguing that the US is not a leading world leader in addressing climate change.
Harris also argued in defence of the EPA’s record of recent deregulatory moves. The US Supreme Court, she said, “has been on the right side of this issue, but has also done harm to the cause of protecting our planet.”
She told the Guardian: “I’ve been surprised by how much these rules have been embraced by Trump.”
“The EPA has a huge problem with data, and with the science on this issue,” she said. “But that’s not the issue,” she continued. “The issue is, what’s in the best interest of the public? If you’re against science, that’s fine, but you have to support human well-being. For me, that’s the moral issue of this.
“You have to have a public that is going to be protected from corporate polluters and from the environment, and that’s what we need. And if that means that there are some fossil fuel plants out there that have to close down, or the coal industry is going to lose jobs, or the economy is going to collapse because of pollution,” she said. “If that’s going to happen, then I will be the