The Democratic Senate hopeful, who says he supports Texas’s oil and gas industry, also joined a Greta Thunberg-inspired school walkout to ‘save our planet’ and introduced a Green New Deal-style bill mandating carbon emission reductions
Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico says he supports his state’s enormous oil and gas industry. Before running for higher office, however, Talarico sought to “inspire a new generation of climate activists” by mandating climate change lessons in Texas public schools. He also authored a Green New Deal-style bill that would have implemented statewide green energy mandates and joined a school walkout protest inspired by climate activist Greta Thunberg.
As a state representative, Talarico introduced a March 2021 bill to “ensure every public school student in Texas has a strong science-based understanding of human-caused climate change and its consequences.” Talarico said he was “so proud of the young people stepping up to push legislators like me to address the climate crisis. But we need millions more.”
The bill would have required every K-12 public school to teach kids about the “long-term problem of human-caused climate and its effects” and also about “bioregionalism, which allows us to understand our reliance on the places we live and to appreciate the plant and animal ecosystems, the watersheds, the landforms and the human cultures connected to these regions.”
“By teaching climate change in our schools, we can inspire a new generation of climate activists,” he said. Around the same time, in March 2021, Talarico introduced the Texas Climate Action Act, which would have required the state to cut its total carbon emissions in half by 2030 and by 90 percent by 2050. Far-left New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal includes nearly identical mandates.
Talarico engaged in youth-focused climate activism of his own. Less than two years before introducing his climate education bill, in September 2019, Talarico marched in a “Youth Climate Strike” in which Texas students walked out of class to march to the Texas state capitol. The protest was one of thousands that took place around the world as part of Thunberg’s “Fridays For Future” movement, which the Swedish climate activist started after she began skipping school to protest her government’s “inaction” on climate change.
Participants in the Texas protest “called for a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels,” according to a report from the left-wing nonprofit Public Citizen. Austin Climate Coalition, a now-defunct group that helped organize the strike, said the protest aimed to inspire state legislation curbing carbon emissions, which the group said would bring the “extinction” of humans, animals, and plants.
“So proud to stand with our young people during their Youth Climate Strike at the Texas Capitol,” Talarico wrote in a Facebook post that included a photo of him posing with two young girls. “Students around the world are walking out of school to save our planet. It’s time for the grown-ups to follow their lead. #ClimateStrike.”
Years earlier, while working as a middle school teacher, Talarico tweeted that he “took 10 minutes today to teach my kids about global warming.” He shared a photo of a drawing on a whiteboard that depicted the sun’s rays hitting Earth, adding, “It definitely freaked them out. #liberalpropaganda.”
Talarico’s years of climate activism contradict the energy-related rhetoric he has espoused as a Senate candidate.
On his campaign website’s “Energy & Environment” section, Talarico says he wants to “make gasoline more affordable by investing in pipeline fortification” and “add to our hundreds of thousands of oil, gas, wind, solar, and battery jobs by creating new jobs in cutting-edge technologies.” The section does reference the “climate crisis” but does not accuse the oil and gas industry of causing it and does not call for reductions in oil production or carbon emissions. Instead, it says, “If any state can figure out how to grow our economy, lower costs, and combat climate change, it’s Texas.”
In a statement shared with the Washington Free Beacon, Talarico campaign spokesman JT Ennis said Talarico supports the state’s oil and gas industry.
“James has never supported the Green New Deal,” Ennis said. “He went to public schools funded by the oil and gas industry and knows how essential oil and gas is to Texas’s economy—it’s why he supports an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy so Texas can remain a leader in oil and gas, wind, solar, geothermal, and more. James will put the economic interests of Texans first—creating good jobs and lowering energy costs.”
While he never endorsed the Green New Deal as a state representative, Talarico’s Texas Climate Action Act includes nearly identical language. Talarico’s bill, for example, would have required Texas to cut its carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030, while the Green New Deal states that reductions of 40 to 60 percent are required by then. Both bills warn of cataclysmic consequences if emissions are not curbed, with Talarico’s predicting “increased natural disasters and increased, intensifying extreme weather” and the Green New Deal pointing to “an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life.”
Months before introducing the Texas Climate Action Act, Talarico praised Ocasio-Cortez, who introduced the Green New Deal in 2019, for saying that fighting climate change will create prosperity.
Texas is the nation’s largest energy producer, according to a federal analysis. It also boasts the highest share of economic contributions by the oil and gas industry, which generates more than $400 billion toward the state’s gross domestic product, including more than $250 billion in total labor income, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Roughly 620,000 Texans work in the oil and gas industry—and Talarico’s climate history is raising eyebrows among some in the sector.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. That’s what we need to look at—James Talarico’s policies of the past, his radical environmental policies—and believe that that’s what he would enact if he were elected to the Senate,” Matt Coday, president of the Texas-based Oil & Gas Workers Association, told the Free Beacon.
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