TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Pete Maysmith, SVP of Campaigns LCV Victory Fund
RE: Harris v. Trump Presidential Debate Climate Cheat Sheet

This summer we have seen Donald Trump continue to push misinformation that climate change is a hoax, attempt to distance himself from Project 2025, and continue to demonstrate that he is only in this race for himself and his Big Oil allies. Tonight, will be no different. Trump will continue to rattle off nonsense like his story about electric sharks, wrongly insist that during his presidency the water was the cleanest, or say that climate change is not our problem. 

But the reality is that Trump’s only policy platforms on the environment are straight out of the Project 2025 playbook and include blocking efforts to build a clean energy economy that is already lowering costs and creating high-paying jobs for families across the country, stripping away environmental protections, prioritizing Big Oil’s wish list, and cutting back tax credits for hardworking families while increasing fossil fuel production. 

In stark contrast, just yesterday, Kamala Harris released her campaign platform that included her plans to continue building a clean energy economy that lowers costs for families across the country, advance environmental justice initiatives, protect public lands, hold polluters accountable and lead the world in tackling the climate crisis. The platform builds upon Harris’s career-long record of standing up to Big Oil, championing clean energy solutions, and bringing environmental justice to the foreground of the climate conversation.

In preparation for tonight’s debate, here’s a cheat sheet of what went down this summer and where Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stand on climate:

• At the RNC, Trump didn’t say Project 2025, but that doesn’t change the fact that he would actively force the federal government to deny the reality of climate change while trying to end the development of a clean energy economy that lowers costs, creates high-paying, family-sustaining jobs, and tackles the climate crisis head on. 
• His dangerous agenda outlines rollbacks of renewable energy and cutting back tax credits for hardworking families while increasing fossil fuel production just to increase the bottom line for the ultra wealthy. 
• Trump himself continues to say he would be a “dictator for one day” to “drill baby drill.” If he is successful, Big Oil will be ready and waiting to take him up on that offer – lawyers for oil executives have already written executive orders for Trump to sign on day one.
• At the DNC, climate and clean energy received the most attention from any major political convention ever with speakers touting Harris’s record of addressing the climate crisis, while criticizing Trump for calling climate change a “hoax.”
• Vice President Harris and climate champions emphasized the economic benefits of clean energy as a climate change solution. And Harris included “the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
• The clean energy plans put in place by the Biden-Harris administration have already created over 300,000 high-paying, family sustaining jobs for families across the country, started to cut energy costs and is beginning to deliver cleaner air and water to communities. 

The records show…

• Support for policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, on which Harris cast the tie-breaking vote continues to be strong, and only becomes stronger the more people hear about it. 
• Voters consistently say they favor candidates who support action on climate. 
• Voters are increasingly concerned about the harm caused by Trump’s environmental policies, both when they hear about his record of rolling back environmental protections and letting polluters off the hook, and when they hear about the extreme agenda in Project 2025 to eliminate the National Weather Service, gut the EPA, and use government to serve the benefits of Trump and polluters over people. 
• Data shows that the Inflation Reduction Act has had some of the largest impacts on red districts nationwide, even though their elected officials opposed the legislation–putting the economic reality in direct conflict with Trump’s climate policies, including the right-wing agenda Project 2025.
• Voters are also concerned about the threat to democracy and our democratic institutions posed by Trump’s continued election denials and anti-democratic policies. 
• Voters care about clean energy with 63 percent of registered voters saying that developing sources of clean energy should be a priority.

The choice this election cycle could not be clearer, one candidate is a climate champion with a LCV lifetime scorecard score of 90% who wants to address the climate crisis head on with solutions that simultaneously lowers costs for families, creates high-paying, family sustaining jobs, and increases access to clean air and clean water. The other candidate is a convicted felon that wants to continue to line the pockets of Big Oil and roll back efforts to build a clean energy economy despite families across the country–especially those in red districts– already benefiting from the programs.

More on Trump and Harris here, here and here. 

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Paid for by LCV Victory Fund, www.lcvvictoryfund.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.