Hello,
As you in all likelihood are aware, Kamala Harris recently selected Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate for the November presidential election.
For Grist, Zoya Teirstein has unpacked Walz’s climate cred:
A progressive with a rural background and a penchant for coalition building, Walz was able to wield a precarious Democratic trifecta to achieve a slew of progressive priorities. The biggest of these took place just a few months after the 2022 midterm elections, when Walz signed a law that requires the state’s utilities to get 100 percent of their electricity from clean sources by 2040. The legislation quickly catapulted Minnesota, a blue state with purple inclinations, to the top of the state-level climate action leaderboard.
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As governor, Walz also signed bipartisan legislation to reform Minnesota’s permitting process for clean energy projects, funded a clean energy jobs training program for minority and low-income Minnesotans, approved new clean transportation standards, and enacted a law directing $240 million toward replacing the state’s lead water pipes. In other states, Republicans (and even some centrist Democrats) have sought to cast politicians overseeing ambitious climate agendas as hellbent on raising energy prices and as generally being out of touch with the general public. But Walz’s reputation as an everyman and his skill as a communicator may have shielded him from the typical anti-climate attacks.
Read the rest of Zoya’s piece over at Grist. And, for an even more detailed summing up of the governor’s climate and environmental record, definitely check out this article from the Star Tribune.
Veteran climate activist and journalist
is excited about Tim Walz being chosen—especially because he believes that Walz’s “neighborliness” will be essential in building the coalitions and support required for decarbonization at scale in the coming years:Bill includes a bunch of links for further reading, including the below article from
—one that offers a sobering reminder that, in spite of his notable climate achievements, Walz failed to stop a massive tar sands pipeline from passing through indigenous-stewarded land:For an overview of climate activist groups’ reactions to the VP selection, read “Climate Movement Says Tim Walz for VP an 'Encouraging Sign’” over at Common Dreams.