Kamala Harris’s energy policies are ‘left’ of Biden: Analyst

President Joe Biden has announced his decision to forgo his reelection campaign, endorsing his Vice President Kamala Harris as the potential Democratic nominee. John Miller, Cowen managing director and ESG policy analyst, joins Catalysts to discuss Harris’s policy positions.

Miller highlights Harris’s energy policies as an area to look at, noting that her “traditional energy, climate, transportation policies were definitively to the left of where the Biden administration sits”. However, he notes that “what the Biden administration has found is that climate policy on its own tends not to work with US voters,” emphasizing that success comes when these policies are framed as “jobs policy or industrial policy.”

Comparing Harris’s potential policies to former President Trump’s, Miller states, “there’s almost two very different portraits being painted.” He advises investors to identify “those very slim areas” of overlap between the two, citing trade and industrial policy as examples.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts.

This post was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

After President Biden stepped aside from the race for president focuses on Vice President Kamala Harris as the anticipated Democratic nominee.

Our next guest joins us to talk about what her record could mean specifically for the energy and transportation sectors.

Joining us.

Now we have John Miller with T DC and John, it’s great to speak with you.

So over the weekend, we already saw a viral clip of Vice President Harris talking about fracking and ending fracking specifically.

What could that mean for the energy sector moving forward if she sticks with that policy and if she does in fact return to the White House as President come November.

Yeah.

Ab Absolutely and thank you so much for having us on.

Certainly another uncharted uh weekend here leading into a Monday in DC.

You can think about where we were last Monday right after the failed assassination assassination attempt of former president Trump.

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The conversation was all on Republicans heading into the RNC this week.

Of course, we have basically a one page letter from President Biden announcing his intent to no longer seek the nomination and providing his full endorsement and support for sitting Vice President Harris and, and it’s an excellent question, you know, her traditional energy climate, transportation policies were definitively to the left of where the Biden administration sits.

Um That’s an interesting perspective.

Um You can argue that some of that was pulled, uh pulled forward in the sense that she represented California, a state which is already to the left of the democratic policies in this space 2019 2020 as she was moving forward with her campaign for then the presidency and she was an initial cosigner endorser of the Green New Deal, which is certainly a toxic document within large parts of the Republican caucus.

And she is also front, front and forward uh around um banning uh hydraulic fracturing specifically on federal lands.

Um Since that time though, she’s certainly been a large champion of everything that’s come out of the Biden administration when it comes to bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the Inflation Reduction Act.

One thing that we hit on constantly for our clients is that what the Biden administration has found is that climate policy on its own tends not to work with us voters.

You have to construe it as jobs policy or industrial policy and that, that’s really where they’ve been successful.

So it’s our expectation that that Harris pivots towards that conversation around Inflation reduction Act, uh credits for jobs or lowering the cost of purchasing new electric vehicles.

You’ll hear a lot of Republican conversations trying to bring back and recycle their comments from 2019, but I don’t think that’s where she is right now.

So that, that’s the dichotomy and DICOM we always had with Harris, right?

Where progressives within the Democratic Party looked at her prior roles as a prosecutor, a little bit skeptical and then moderate Dems would look at some of her policies and we’re a little bit skeptical too as well.

So she really has only has a few days and weeks to, to square those issues.

So John given that and given the fact that there is so much, so much uncertainty in the race right now, if you’re an investor at home, should you just be sitting on the sidelines waiting for how this is going to play out?

Just given the fact that yes, it seems to be consensus that probably Vice President Harris is gonna come more towards the center or adopt policies maybe more similar to the current administration right now rather than what she had been saying during her 2020 run.

But then when you square that with what we’re hearing from Vance and what we’re hearing from former president Trump, clearly, that’s something totally different that we could see in terms of the future here for energy.

Yeah.

No, there’s almost two very different portraits being painted.

So when we engage with our clients around these topics, we’re always trying to find, you know, those very slim areas of the, the Venn diagram that do overlap and, and they do continue to exist.

One interesting area that, that there is overlap between uh the extreme left and the extreme right is, is kind of around trade protection has been done policy and JD Vance sitting on the, the Trump ticket now as, as the vice president, he’s very, very much leaned into this concept too as well using tariffs, using industrial policy, tax credits and grants.

That’s very, very similar wordage and activities that we’ve seen from the Biden administration, right.

The, the targets of those subsidies are different, but it’s still the same structure.

So if you can find domestic industries that sit behind the tariff mode, that would be beneficiaries of tax policies or grants, that’s a good place to be.

If you can find places in the energy transition, that kind of sit in the middle, things like nuclear, things like clean hydrogen, things like even utility scale solar.

We think those are all interesting places that will do well, no matter who sits in the White House.