Howie Hawkins, the 2020 Green Party presidential candidate, condemned the appointment of Cedric Richmond to lead the White House Office of Public Engagement with business and the climate movement.
“With the appointment of Richmond, Biden just told the climate movement there will be no honeymoon with the new administration,” Hawkins said.
Richmond has represented Louisiana’s Second District, which tracks the oil refineries and plastics factories of Louisiana’s notorious Cancer Alley between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. He received the fifth highest total of oil and gas industry contributions among House Democrats over his 10 years in Congress. He voted to approve the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline.
“Richmond’s role will be to pacify the climate movement and minority communities with sweet talk and token grants while the oil and gas industry continues to frack the hell out of the country and the Louisiana refineries and plastics factories continue to poison workers and residents in his congressional district,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins said that Biden’s climate platform offered little to counter that projection. Biden’s climate program calls for a 10-year, $1.7 trillion public investment in indirect support for expanding renewable energy, with a primary emphasis on tax credits for renewable power production and research and development funding for new technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration, which is a way to continue using fracked gas for power.
