Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is facing an uphill reelection bid, has backtracked on his once-praised support for the Green New Deal and begun to antagonize his liberal colleagues, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Over the past year, Brown has been a vocal opponent of the Biden-Harris administration's positions. hydrogen Tax creditimproved efficiency standard For power Transformersand Requirements For coal plant The goal is to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 90% by 2032. This has been taken notice of by the Green Vote, a left-leaning environmental group, which has lowered Brown's target. evaluation The National Environmental Scorecard will rise from 100% in 2021 to 88% in 2023, the lowest level in the past year. Ten years And that was well below his career average of 94%. (Related: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown loses support for police for first time in 12 years)
While the 2024 scorecard has yet to be released, Brown has released what LCV believes to be the scorecard. “Anti-environmental vote” Four of the last five climate change bills introduced in the Senate, and the fifth, have involved judicial appointments. His Heritage Action Score is countermeasure They voted and co-sponsored bills to show how conservative they are. Sitting In the 118th Congress, it was 12%, triple the previous 4% and well above the previous record of 8%.
“Sherrod Brown will vote this way once every six years,” John McHenry, a Republican polling analyst and vice president of North Star Opinion Research, told DCNF. “Five of those six years he'll support the Green New Deal and go along with whatever the Senate Majority Leader wants, and the other year he'll vote how Ohio voters actually want.”
From limiting drilling to blocking LNG exports, Joe Biden is the most anti-American energy president of my lifetime and Sherrod Brown has fully supported his policies. I will fight to stop their liberal plans so America can become energy dominant again! pic.twitter.com/MJkr15HzDy
— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) January 29, 2024
In 2019, he defeat Brown had a 100% LCV score when Republican Jim Renacci secured reelection in the same year he said Politico: “I support[s] “Green New Deal” and “[s] We need to actively support climate change [legislation]He also voted in favor of the 2022 Anti-Inflation Act, which allocates $370 billion to combat climate change.
The Republican Party Criticized Brown has changed his stance in past elections: In 2011, the National Republican Senatorial Committee accused him of changing his stance on tax cuts after he had campaigned for them in the 2009 election. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act He was a vocal opponent of the Bush tax cuts but didn't do enough to counter them. According to To PolitiFact.
In 1997, Brown served as a member of the House of Representatives for Ohio's 13th congressional district. Voted Brown has advocated for a constitutional amendment to limit terms in Congress to 12 years, saying, “The reason voters support term limits is because they want to get rid of people like Newt Gingrich and Dick Gephardt who have been in Congress for 20 or 30 years.” In 2012, Brown, who was in his 19th year as a member of Congress, Voted Opposed to amending term limits.
Brown's latest shift in climate policy comes as he faces a tough reelection campaign against Republican businessman Bernie Moreno. Ranking Brown is the third senator most likely to lose his seat in 2024. He currently leads by about 5 percentage points, according to polling data from Real Clear Politics. show.
But Moreno has only just begun to increase his campaign spending, launching a $25 million advertising offensive on August 20. According to Prior to the ad buy, Moreno had only spent about $2 million on advertising since winning the Republican primary in March, according to Politico.
Ohio is among the top 10 natural gas producers in the United States, accounting for approximately 5% of the nation's natural gas production and reserves. According to According to the Energy Information Administration, the United States is the world's fourth-largest electricity producer and seventh-largest electricity consumer, with 51% of its net electricity generation expected to come from natural gas by 2022.
Manufacturing, administered by the Department of Energy explanation As an “energy- and emissions-intensive industry,” it serves as the “backbone” of Ohio's economy. According to According to a 2022 article from WOUB Media, an Athens, Ohio-based media company, Ohio ranked third in the nation in total manufacturing employees and fourth in manufacturing gross domestic product in 2023. According to From the Ohio Manufacturers Association's “Manufacturing Matters” report.
“As Ohio transitions to the economy of the future, including the reshoring of semiconductor production, data centers and critical manufacturing, energy costs will be critical to the Buckeye State's success,” Greg R. Lawson, a fellow at the Buckeye Institute, an Ohio think tank, told DCNF. “A Green New Deal would have dire economic impacts not just for Ohioans but for all of America. Anyone advocating for such a policy will have to answer some tough questions.”
Since January 2021, when President Joe Biden took office, the average electricity price in the U.S. has increased by more than 30%. According to to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Meanwhile, electricity demand in the U.S. has been surging in recent years due to the growth of the data center industry, and the forecast for U.S. power load growth over the next five years has been raised from 2.6% to 4.7%. According to Ohio has seen an influx of data centers in recent years, with Amazon Web Services, Google and QTS Data Centers all planning to expand or open new data center campuses in the state in 2023, according to power sector consulting firm Grid Strategies. According to Go to the cloud computing news website “Data Center Frontier.”
NRSC spokesman Philip Letsow argues: Brown will likely not be able to shy away from his record on climate change, given his previous support for the Green New Deal and a ban on some liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
“No one believes them,” Letsow told DCNF. “Shameless Sherrod Brown betrayed Ohio's energy workers by praising the Green New Deal and supporting the Biden-Harris devastating LNG export ban. Now he's endorsing Kamala Harris, who is explicitly calling for a nationwide ban on fracking and offshore drilling.” (Related article: Several weak Democratic lawmakers absent from party convention)
The Biden administration in January ordered a temporary suspension of export permits for LNG export facilities, and in February Brown introduced a counter-bill that would ban only LNG exports to China and other geopolitical rivals, Axios reported. Suggested It was a “counter message” play.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said in 2019 that there was “no question” she would repeal fracking if elected president, but now insists she does not support a ban.
Like Letsow, McHenry believes climate change could help Moreno in November's presidential election, but only if he gets his messaging right.
“People are not going to be happy that Democrats have raised their electric rates,” McHenry told DCNF, “So if Bernie Moreno continues to appeal to voters, they will understand what's going on. But Moreno needs to show voters that Brown only supports the state's workers and energy sector in an election year.”
Brown's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Moreno's office referred the DCNF's request for comment to the NRSC.
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