Climate Activists Flex Their Political Muscle

[Celerity]

Environmental groups want Democrats to confront oil companies over high gas prices. And Democrats are listening.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/us/politics/democrats-oil-companies-gas-prices.html

An environmental coalition is trying to raise the pressure on Congress to pass stalled climate legislation and to draw attention to what it claims is profiteering by oil companies.

At the urging of environmental groups, Democrats are going on the offensive on gas prices — hitting energy companies with a populist message that puts the party squarely at odds with Republicans and the oil industry. To do otherwise would be “dangerous and political malpractice,” Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, argued in a memo published on Thursday.

In a survey, Garin found that 60 percent of voters viewed “price gouging and excessive price increases by oil companies to increase their profits” as major reasons that gas prices have risen to a national average of $4.29 per gallon. “They’re jacking up prices, and people see that,” said Pete Maysmith, a senior vice president for campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, which co-sponsored the poll.

Climate Power, an allied group, unveiled an ad this week, titled “We’ve Been Here Before,” that is running on cable television and online. “Here we are again,” the narrator begins over footage of Russian tanks. “An overseas conflict hikes up our gas prices, and oil C.E.O.s rake in record profits.” The ad is the beginning of a new $5 million push by a coalition of green groups to highlight what they claim is profiteering by oil companies and to raise the pressure on Congress to pass stalled climate legislation.

“This is an inflection point,” said John Podesta, a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and the chairman of the board of directors for the Center for American Progress. “The public sees a petro-fueled, authoritarian regime violating all the laws of war and pounding a civilian population in Ukraine — these two things have come together in a visceral way.”

snip