Nancy Pelosi championed climate as House Democrats' leader
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore attend a reception for San Francisco Climate Week in April. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed climate change to the front burner as House Democrats' leader, though Republicans have undone some of her accomplishments.
Why it matters: Pelosi, who announced her retirement on Thursday, is regarded as one of history's most successful House speakers, partly because of her ability to mobilize her caucus to deal with issues like climate change.
- "We cannot just have any political disagreement or the power of the fossil fuel industry cramping our style as we go forward with this, but to show a path that gets us to where we need to be," Pelosi said of addressing climate in 2022.
Context: Pelosi "made climate the flagship issue of her speakership," according to her congressional website.
- After becoming the first woman speaker in 2007, she set up the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming in the face of criticism from committee chairs who saw it as encroaching on their turf.
- Republicans didn't renew the committee after recapturing the majority in 2010. But when Democrats regained House control in 2018, Pelosi resurrected it as the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, only to have the GOP disband it in 2023.
- Also in 2007, she steered into law an energy bill that raised vehicle fuel efficiency standards for the first time in three decades.
Under President Barack Obama, she got the House to pass a bill that would set up a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions.
- But the highly controversial measure never advanced in the Senate, and was seen as a political albatross for at least some of the more than 50 House Democrats who lost their seats in 2010.
- The Pelosi-led House in 2009 also passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included $69 billion in clean energy funding.
Zoom in: When President Trump first took office in 2017, Pelosi became one of his chief critics.
- She pushed through a bill in 2019 requiring the United States to remain in the Paris Agreement — from which Trump withdrew the U.S. — and led a delegation to the COP25 summit in Madrid to reiterate commitment to the pact.
After President Biden took office, she steered Democrats toward backing a bipartisan infrastructure package that invested heavily in EVs, clean energy transmission and resiliency programs.
- That legislation paved the way for the Inflation Reduction Act, which made the single largest investment in climate and energy in history.
- The second Trump administration has dismantled, or sought to dismantle, many of the IRA's provisions, though it has left in place some nuclear and clean energy-related tax credits.
Yes, but: Pelosi's climate stances haven't always thrilled all Democrats.
- More than 200 youth activists, flanked by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), flooded Pelosi's office in 2018 imploring Democrats to act more decisively on climate change.
- Pelosi later declined to back the Ocasio-Cortez-sponsored Green New Deal bill, dismissing it as "the green dream or whatever they call it."
The bottom line: As Pelosi steps back from Congress, many of the climate issues she championed now face uncertainty under the Trump administration.
