POLITICO Pro Q&A: Rep. Jared Huffman
Rep. Jared Huffman acknowledges his fellow Democrats are “not on the same page” on how aggressively to combat climate change and what specific policies to employ to address it, but he says Congress should pass whatever consensus measures it can as soon as possible rather than wait for a single omnibus climate bill that may not ever materialize.
Huffman, a senior member of the Natural Resources and Climate Crisis committees, admits he wished other committees had waited for the Climate Crisis’ legislative recommendations in March before releasing their own bills, but said the caucus would “figure this thing out” in the end.
The California Democrat, a former lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council who came to Congress in 2013, voiced interest in one day chairing the Natural Resources Committee, though said he would not challenge Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) for the gavel. POLITICO spoke with him during a Jan. 14 interview in his office.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Let's start with wildfires. Obviously, your district has been hit hard by them. Australia remains on fire. Is that changing how people are thinking about climate change and is this the new normal?
It’s forced a reckoning for folks who live in the arid West and others, frankly, who maybe have been in denial and who’ve watched what has happened in the arid West. What’s happening in Australia is simply another data point that forces people to accept the reality of this mess.
Moving to your caucus for a second, do you feel like Democrats are moving in the same direction on climate policy?
In the same general direction, yes. I think all of us embrace the basic science, understand that this issue is not going away, I think most of us agree it’s a crisis, but we’re not on the same page when it comes to both the urgency and the specific measures we need to take to address it.
Is that frustrating? Given there’s top line agreement on many of the things, but that the conversation about what target, when to get there, etc., hasn’t happened yet.
There’s a lot of fault lines, even within our caucus, on this challenge — it’s not a simple thing.
We have even deep blue districts that have a lot of fossil fuel jobs and a lot of environmental justice issues that have to be addressed in a meaningful way — a trust has to be established. These are not simple things.
There is a suspicion of coastal elites and others who might just want to impose one-size-fits-all frameworks that don’t account for some of those considerations that some of my colleagues have to take very seriously.
The state of New Mexico, for example, gets an awful lot of revenue from fossil fuel royalties. That revenue goes to support schools and social safety net programs, and it’s not as simple as just saying we’re going to shut off the oil spigot.
We’re going to have to find other revenue sources. We’re going to have to do major economic development initiatives in areas that are impacted by the transition away from fossil fuel and we’re going to figure out a way for states and communities in that situation to trust us.
So how do you go about doing that work and has it begun?
We’re beginning it now and it would be incredible hubris for me to tell you I’ve figured it all out.
Does it feel like environmental justice has become an increasingly important factor for the caucus as it works through these discussions?
I think it’s understood that we’re going to have to tackle environmental justice as part of this solution. There’s no escaping that and it’s the right thing to do anyway, so I think we want to do that.
House leaders has often framed their efforts of the past two years as trying to craft legislation that could move quickly under a Democratic administration. Does that seem realistic, given some of these thorny conversations have yet to occur?
I think there are some aspects of it that can move pretty quickly. If the goal is to have one, massive, omnibus climate solution bill, I’m not sure that comes together quickly — even under a new administration with both houses in Democratic hands. I think there are pieces of it that can. And I’m not sure we should wait for the kitchen sink bill to fully materialize.
If we can agree on the electricity sector, for example, let’s go, let’s get started. If we can agree on some public lands measures, let’s go. I just think we’re going to have to do as much as we can, as fast as we can, and never stop working.
Some have clearly spoken in favor of working towards one large bill. Do you see value in pursuing these smaller, step-by-step measures?
As long as you understand and are clear with the American people and our colleagues that if you do an incremental step, you’re not done. You’re just going to have to do a whole lot of steps. If that’s understood, I’m happy to get started. I really feel like some of this has to get moving, even if we’re still working on other parts of it.
As you’re well aware, part of the dynamic here is people pass legislation on some subject, it gets signed into law and then everyone says we’re done with that area.
We will not be done with this. Even if we were to pass the "Kitchen Sink Climate Act," we wouldn’t be done because we will be fine-tuning it, we will be addressing unintended consequences and you have zero margin for error with this crisis. If you don’t bring this thing in by mid-century to net-zero emissions, it’s game over. So, you’re never going to be done — not for the next 30 years at least — and I’m sure well beyond that.
There’s been a lot made of the rhetorical shift by Republicans away from outright questioning the science behind climate change. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been working on a solution framework. What do you make of that shift?
They’re evolving too slowly and a lot of it is fake, that’s what I make of it.
Why do you say a lot of it is fake?
Take a look at the feel-good ads you see from the fossil fuel industry that would have us believe we can just burn fossil fuels and feel like we’re tackling climate change. That’s fake. That’s not real.
Or these euphemisms that have taken root in the Republican messaging points about innovation. Inevitably [their solution] comes down to new ways to extract more fossil fuel and sell fracked gas. When they do these things, they’re actually talking about making the climate problem worse, not better.
We just have to be real about that because we don't have time for fake solutions. And I’m not ready to pat them on the back for evolving when I see them making the climate crisis worse.
What advice would you give Democratic candidates for president about how to advance their climate platforms, if elected?
I think they have to ask the American people to be part of solving this global crisis. They have to explain the crisis in a way that a president probably has never done.
They have to explain why it’s going to take a whole of government, whole of our nation mobilization and make this like a World War II type of unifying, mobilized, national response. We’re going to lead the world out of this crisis and we need every American to understand that and be part of the reforms that are going to be necessary but also be part of the incredible opportunity that it’s going to present to us.
This can answer, frankly, a lot of our problems, as we look at economic dislocation and globalization and where the next generation of good-paying jobs are going to come from. This can be responsive to a lot of that, if we just tackle it in that spirit.
How do you see climate legislation playing out this year in this chamber — all of the various efforts?
The Climate Crisis select committee has to keep its eye on delivering its report and not get distracted by some of these other bills that may begin to drop. I think the select committee just has to do its work product and then we’ll see how that squares.
It’s understandable that other committees of jurisdiction are going to want to bring their ideas forward. We’ll need to take stock of where are the similarities, where are the differences.
Are there some things in the select committee’s report that other committees can pick up and run with? I hope there will be. I have, frankly, wished that the standing committees would wait a little for us to get out first with this report so that we can choreograph this a little bit, but at the same time, I understand they’re very important standing committees and they’re not used to waiting around for select committees. We’ll figure this thing out.
Do these perennial battles over jurisdiction impede efforts to actually get things done?
It does rear its head from time to time around here. Whether it’s the perennial tension between appropriators and authorizing committees or the turf issues between the various standing committees. Climate change is an issue that invokes a lot of those turf tensions.
If we get a president who really wants to have a vision and step out and lead, it can help harmonize a lot of that. In the absence of that and with Donald Trump and his whole shtick on climate, yeah, it’s a little more chaotic here in the House, but I think it solves itself with a Democratic president.
Is chairing Natural Resources something you aspire to at some point?
Yes, but I’m not going to challenge Raúl Grijalva. I do want to say that because every now and then I’ll run into some intrigue, some theories and stuff. I get along really well with Chairman Grijalva. I consider him an ally and a friend. He can hold that gavel as long as he wants to, but when he’s ready to let it go, I would love to do that.
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By: Anthony Adragna
Source: Politico
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