Midterms test Democrats' strategy tying climate to affordability

Democratic wins would unlock budget, oversight and confirmation powers

If the polls can be believed, the US could see a blue wave in the midterms, giving Democrats a chance to take back the House and Senate, and to gain up to four governor’s seats. The election will also be a test of how voters respond to Democratic candidates tying the biggest issue of the election — affordability — to the climate crisis.

The outcome would set the bounds of federal climate action. If Democrats take control of the House or Senate, they won’t be able to overturn previous Republican actions like repealing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, and they can’t pass new legislation that Trump would veto, but they will have more cards to play to push back against the administration’s energy policies going forward.

If Democrats take back the House, the White House would have to compromise with Democrats in order to pass budgets, giving Democrats the power to add climate provisions into appropriations legislation, said Michael Gerrard, founder and director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “Many appropriations begin in the House, and these are huge bills that have to pass, so it’s possible that some pro-climate provisions could be put in some of the appropriations legislation,” he said. “Often presidents sign appropriation bills that have provisions they don’t like because they need to get the budget passed.”

Democrats could also use their power in the House to launch investigations and subpoena witnesses and documents. Dan Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested they could investigate possible conflicts of interest or corruption, like the Trump administration intervening in a federal lawsuit to allow Elon Musk to continue using portable gas generators in his Mississippi datacenter, which the suit alleges is a violation of the Clean Air Act.

If Democrats win the Senate, they could oppose further confirmations of federal judges, cabinet officers and sub-cabinet positions. “That gives [Democratic] senators some leverage to stop appointments they don’t want,” Farber said. “But you can also hold appointments hostage in return for other things.” Preventing appointments of anti-climate judges would leave more vacancies for the next president to fill, he added. “That can have a big long-term effect on the environment.”

Gerrard said a power shift in the House and Senate could change negotiations around the permitting bill, which could clear hurdles for both clean energy and fossil fuels projects. The bill would significantly weaken the National Environmental Policy Act, making it impossible for a court to halt a project over a NEPA violation, he said. “But if the Democrats are in charge of both the House and the Senate, that bill might look different,” he said.

Farber and Gerrard said state climate policy also hangs in the balance this November. The Cook Political Report found that Democrats could gain two to four governor’s seats this cycle. “If some of the governor’s offices flip from Republican to Democrat, that could yield a profound change in state climate policy,” Gerrard said.

If Republicans buck polling predictions and manage to keep control of the House and Senate, the administration would retain its latitude to continue dismantling environmental regulations, and Democrats would lack the investigative and subpoena powers to hold it accountable. Trump could also continue appointing conservative justices. “Trump has been packing the lower courts with anti-regulatory, super-conservative judges,” Farber said. Under this administration, Republican lawmakers have backed Trump on policies that were unfavorable to their constituents — such as voting to repeal clean energy tax credits that created jobs in their districts — and if Republicans win in the midterms, Republicans would continue to vote in support of Trump. “Maybe even more so, because I think this would be seen as a big win for him personally,” Farber said.

“They have not just been sitting on the sidelines – they have helped Trump, in terms of repealing the Inflation Reduction Act from Biden, and overturning some specific regulations by Congress. We could see more of that kind of thing coming from them. So it would be another big step backwards,” Farber said. “I keep thinking, how much worse could they do? But they always find something,” he added.

The affordability stakes are concrete. A study by Nera predicted that between 2027 and 2033, economy-wide household energy costs would increase on average by $11.6bn annually from constraining the deployment of solar and wind. The region hardest hit by these constraints is Texas, where rates are forecast to rise as much as 22%, the study found. The Nera report also found that increased reliance on natural gas capacity and generation raises reliability risks and increases exposure to price volatility. According to Climate Power, since Trump took office, gas and electric utilities have raised or sought to increase bills by more than $92bn, affecting more than 100 million customers across the country.

The clean-energy workforce is also shrinking, with many of the losses in battleground states. The US clean energy workforce lost nearly 37,000 jobs last year — the first annual job loss in America’s clean energy economy since the pandemic — according to a September report from E2, a business advocacy group for the clean economy that analyzed Department of Energy data. A report from Climate Power puts that number even higher, with 173,000 clean energy jobs either cut or delayed since Trump took office. The Climate Power report found that Texas saw the most jobs lost.

Polling shows that Democrats and Republicans in battleground states want candidates to talk more about the climate crisis. And even though one in three US adults have been directly affected by extreme weather, midterm candidates are avoiding talking directly about climate change in what’s known as “climate hushing”.

Researchers from the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability have found that there are three groups of Democratic candidates and officeholders who are talking about the climate crisis in subtle instead of direct ways: energy populists like Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio are using datacenters and utility bills to connect the issues of climate and affordability; climate champions like Arizona Democratic candidate JoAnna Mendoza are promising bold action like investing in clean energy; and candidates advocating an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy, like Amy Acton in the Ohio governor’s race.

“The one thing that they all have in common is a focus on affordability … and talking about energy issues in the context of affordability,” said Geoffrey Henderson, an assistant environmental policy and planning professor at the University of Michigan. Henderson noted that a few candidates, like Democrat Josh Turek in Iowa, are emphasizing how extreme weather events worsened by the climate crisis are driving up the cost of insurance. With various quiet climate messages being tested in battleground states, this election could be a test of how voters respond to these messages. Henderson expects political analysts will study the data after the election to draw lessons from it. “The climate message has in a number of ways been brought into alignment with the affordability question, and so I think this is a test of whether that combination resonates,” he said.

The issue of climate hushing has come up election after election, but Henderson said he believes it’s a positive thing that candidates are still finding ways to talk about climate, even indirectly. “It’s better that candidates are tying climate to affordability than not mentioning it at all, and I do see how different parts of the country lend themselves to different strategies.”

Environmental laws are being tested in US courts like never before. “We’re now at a stage where every significant environmental regulation is challenged in court by one side or the other,” Gerrard said. The Trump administration has set out to weaken and revoke environmental regulations, triggering a wave of litigation attempting to undo those actions. If a future Democratic president tries to restore those regulations or issue new ones, they would also be challenged in court, Gerrard said. He is closely watching the fight over Trump’s repeal of the endangerment finding, which stated that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health, allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to limit greenhouse gas pollution from various sources. “There’s a case before the DC circuit on Trump’s revocation of the endangerment finding – that’s a very big case,” he noted.

Gerrard is also looking ahead to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Suncor v Boulder case, which will decide whether local officials in Boulder, Colorado, can force fossil fuel companies to pay for their share of damages from the climate crisis. If the justices rule against Boulder, it could block future climate damages cases, removing a vital method of accountability.