Former Vice President Joe Biden’s new climate plan released Tuesday appears to borrow some text from nonprofits without attribution.
Josh Nelson, a Vice President at CREDO mobile, an environmentalist cell phone company, posted the exact language on Twitter between Biden’s plan and excerpts from documents produced by the Blue Green Alliance and the Carbon Capture Coalition:
The paragraph in Joe Biden’s climate plan about carbon capture and sequestration includes language that is remarkably similar to items published previously by the Blue Green Alliance and the Carbon Capture Coalition.
— Josh Nelson (@josh_nelson) June 4, 2019
On the left, Joe Biden’s climate plan. Source: https://t.co/WHWvRK784s
On the right, a letter the Blue Green Alliance sent to leadership of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2017. Source (page 96): https://t.co/YxP3R16ZIo pic.twitter.com/oJSFXW742z
— Josh Nelson (@josh_nelson) June 4, 2019
On the left, Joe Biden’s climate plan. Source: https://t.co/WHWvRK784s
On the right, a description of the Carbon Capture Coalition on the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions website. Source: https://t.co/nulmTqXZ1p pic.twitter.com/4f010MqNjY
— Josh Nelson (@josh_nelson) June 4, 2019
“Biden’s goal is to make CCUS a widely available, cost-effective, and rapidly scalable solution to reduce carbon emissions to meet mid-century climate goals,” reads Biden’s campaign plan.
“[Our] goal is to make carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) a widely available, cost-effective, and rapidly scalable solution to reduce carbon emissions to meet mid-century climate goals,” reads the Carbon Capture Coalition website.
Nelson also noted that membership of the carbon capture coalition included fossil fuel companies.
Membership of the carbon capture coalition, where some of Biden’s language seems to have originated, includes Shell, Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and Cloud Peak Energy: https://t.co/U8fhQ8Fwrk pic.twitter.com/RDg4MgBgTf
— Josh Nelson (@josh_nelson) June 4, 2019
“[C]arbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS) is a rapidly growing technology that has the potential to create economic benefits for multiple industries while significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions.”
“Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a rapidly growing technology that has potential to create economic benefits for multiple industries while significantly reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,” reads a 2017 letter to the Senate from the Blue Green Alliance.
The Washington Free Beacon first spotted Nelson’s notes on Twitter.
Although political campaigns draw heavily from activists and non-profit organizations to develop policies, they usually scrutinize the language to prevent charges of plagiarism.
Biden, in particular, faces more scrutiny after he dropped out of his 1988 presidential campaign because of plagiarism in law school.
The New York Times featured a story on Biden’s habit of embellishing stories and plagiarism charges on Monday, pointing to a claim he made that he had marched in the Civil Rights movement, despite aides telling him to stop.
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