Former Vice President Al Gore privately urged President Joe Biden to keep hundreds of billions of spending to subsidize green industries and even kill another proposed oil pipeline.
Gore called Biden personally and demanded he include billions of climate spending in his infrastructure bill, according to a report in the Washington Post.
Gore was encouraged to contact Biden by John Podesta, the former manager for Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign. Podesta’s influence has waned sharply after Clinton lost to former President Donald Trump in 2016.
Gore continues lobbying for more government spending to combat climate change, a mantle he claimed after losing his own race for president to George W. Bush in 2000.
Biden proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in climate spending in his infrastructure plan, including over a trillion in green energy tax credits, $274 billion to build and “retrofit” affordable housing, $174 billion for electric vehicles, $100 billion for improving electric grids, $16 billion to plug oil and gas wells, $10 billion for a “Civilian Climate Corps,” and $5 billion for climate research.
Leftist Senate Democrats have also ramped up demands for green spending.
“No climate, no deal,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) wrote on social media on Wednesday.
Senate Republicans are opposed to Biden’s planned spending on green energy, arguing that the money should focus on traditional infrastructure projects like roads and bridges.
Gore also urged Biden to stop the Byhalia Pipeline in Tennessee, a project targeted by “environmental justice” activists who claim it will risk the drinking water of the black community in Memphis.
Leftist celebrity activists Jane Fonda and Danny Glover have also rallied opposition to the pipeline.