Biden’s team. Choice of defender of fossil energies raises criticism

Despite President Donald Trump’s reluctance to initiate the transition process at the White House, even denying Joe Biden’s advisers access to the most crucial information, the President-elect has already started to define his team for the Administration that will take office at January 20th.

Biden’s team includes half a thousand names, with a constitution – 52% are women and 46% black, Latino and Asian – who seek to respond to campaign promises to unite an America shattered by the previous Administration. And not only, says the statement from the Biden team: “[São nomes] that demonstrate the president-elect’s commitment to building a government that looks like America ”.

But some choices can be problematic, given the promises of the program that secured Biden’s election, and Cedric Richmond is one such case.

A faithful ally of Biden in the last campaign, Richmond was chosen by the now president-elect for his adviser and also to serve as director of the White House Office for Public Engagement. In the crosshairs of criticism is the curriculum of this Democrat from Louisiana.

In 10 years in the American Congress, Richmond, a member of the House of Representatives, maintained a close connection with the major fossil energy exploration companies and was one of the Democrats who fought the most against the limitation of fracking (technique for extracting liquid and gaseous fuels from the subsoil through hydraulic fracturing), precisely a matter in which Biden sailed in rough waters during the presidential campaign to finally speak out in the second debate with Donald Trump, seeking to reinforce the its environmental agenda.

During the race to the White House, Joe Biden assured that combating climate change is at the top of his agenda, promising the United States to return to the Paris Agreement as soon as he takes over the country. But the choice of Cedric Richmond for his team gives an indication against this path.

Richmond, in its alliance with the energy industry, raised a sum in donations of around 341 thousand dollars (287 thousand euros) from large gas and fuel companies. According to the accounting done by the American media, it is an amount that places him as the fifth biggest “beneficiary” among Democrats in the House of Representatives. This total includes an amount of 40 thousand dollars (34 thousand euros) from ExxonMobil.

According to Politico, one of Cedric Richmond’s functions will be “connecting [da Casa Branca] with the business community and climate change activists ”.

However, in addition to the funds collected from the polluting industry, Richmond still has a fracture record with his party in the main votes on environmental issues: for example, during the climate crisis that shook Louisiana, Richmond joined the Republicans to do pass the increase in fossil fuel exports and promote the development of the pipeline network. I would also vote against Democratic legislation to impose pollution limits on fracking, as he cast his vote on legislation proposed by Republicans with a view to limiting the Obama Administration’s authority to tighten the regulation of this extraction technique.

A path that should cause unease within the green cause when Richmond has already made it known that “this new role” will allow him to “give advice to the president when he wants it, and sometimes maybe when he doesn’t want it”, according to a statement cited by CNN after Biden’s election.

This Tuesday, recalling that Richmond has not yet committed to a new climate deal, the Sunrise Movement declared that “Cedric Richmond raised a lot of money from the fossil fuel industry, and joined in while polluters poisoned his own community”.

“How can young people and frontline communities trust that our voices will be taken into account more than the big oil companies in a Biden Administration?”, Asks the popular movement, with its executive director, Varshini Prakash, the speaking of what “today looks like a betrayal, one of President-elect Biden’s first hires for his new administration has received more donations from the fossil fuel industry during his Congressional career than any other Democrat.”

For Prakash, Richmond’s choice “is an affront to the younger constituency, which made Biden’s election possible.”
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