For Democrats, Climate Policy Now Wears an Affordability Label

On the campaign page of James Talarico, the Democrat with the best shot in nearly 40 years at winning a Senate seat in Republican-held Texas, climate change gets a mention under the heading "energy and environment." It is not the point of the page. His pledges are about lowering energy costs, emergency relief for spiking utility bills, making data centers pay for their own grid upgrades, and growing jobs in the energy sector.

That approach is common this year. President Donald Trump's administration has gutted US climate policy, and wildfires, record heat waves and flooding have hit communities across the country. Yet Democrats on the midterm trail are mostly quiet about global warming. Candidates frame the issue around what Americans struggle to afford: gas, groceries, and insurance on homes exposed to extreme weather. Analysis by the nonprofit newsroom Inside Climate News found that Democrats have sharply cut references to climate change in their press releases and campaign messaging.

Max Frankel, executive director of the SEEC Institute, a nonprofit that helps guide climate policy in Congress, told DW the party has entered a space where climate policy doesn't need to be called climate policy to be climate policy.

The election is November 3, and most forecasts have Democrats winning the House and a narrow Senate majority. Without the White House, analysts say, passing legislation will be hard, and almost any climate measure will need Republican votes. Few experts expect a full revival of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democratic law that created incentives for clean energy projects and was largely dismantled by Trump's major tax law. Democrats may instead try to restore pieces aimed at household bills, such as incentives for home efficiency upgrades and for appliances like heat pumps replacing oil and gas heaters. They could also expand a manufacturing tax credit for solar, batteries and critical minerals that mostly survived; one bipartisan bill would extend it to nuclear fusion components. Adrian Deveny, founder of the decarbonization policy firm Climate Vision, said it would be nothing at the scale of the IRA: singles and doubles rather than a home run, which he considers still worth doing.

A first bipartisan test may come before the new Congress is sworn in in January. Some Democrats and Republicans back a reform bill that would make it far easier to build major infrastructure, including long-distance transmission lines that now take years because of complex permitting rules. David Spence, a University of Texas political scientist who studies energy regulation, said wind and solar would benefit most, since the best and cheapest sites tend to be far from cities and need transmission to reach market. Environmental groups warn the bill could also speed approval of fossil fuel projects. Spence said a big Democratic midterm win might lead some Democrats to peel off their support, believing they can do better in the next Congress.

Major federal climate legislation looks like a long shot before the 2028 presidential election, and afterward would probably require Democrats to hold the White House, Senate and House. No 2028 platforms exist yet, but experts expect data centers to feature. A Politico poll found half of Americans oppose data centers being built near their homes. Deveny, who led negotiations on the IRA, expects every candidate to focus on data center constraints as a way to address affordability, calling that the entry point for climate policy. Proposals include a pause on construction from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, ending tax breaks for data centers, and new taxes on their electricity use.

Restoring IRA clean energy tax incentives is the nearest thing to consensus, Deveny said, though not everyone backs it. This year more than 150 legislators co-sponsored the Energy Bills Relief Act, which would reinstate those incentives, reform transmission permitting and make data centers pay for grid upgrades. It is unlikely to pass soon but signals what Democrats might support. Other ideas include a federal program to help insurers cover climate-driven disasters and lower premiums, and climate superfunds that would make fossil fuel companies help pay for extreme-weather damage and adaptation. Vermont and New York passed such laws, though a federal judge blocked New York's.

The 2028 race is expected to start a few weeks after the midterms, bringing a new round of proposals, and a new president whose party also wins Congress typically sets the legislative agenda early in the term.