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Vice President Mike Pence's fight to block climate activeness began long earlier he became President Donald Trump's stalwart second-in-control.

The former Indiana governor came into Trump's orbit with a reputation every bit a civilisation warrior who sought to restrict gay marriage and reproductive rights, and he has described his defence of the fossil fueled-economic system equally part of the same ideological battle.

"Information technology has long been a goal of the liberal left in this country to advance a climatic change agenda," he said in a June 2017 interview on Trick & Friends to laud Trump's decision to leave the Paris climate accordance. "For some reason or another, this consequence of climate change has emerged as a paramount upshot for the left in this country and around the globe."

Another cardinal asset Pence brought to the Trump administration was the close bond he had forged with wealthy corporate donors who shared his determination to prevent U.S. action on climate—especially the petrochemical, libertarian, billionaire Koch brothers.

A Climate Alter-Denying 'Rush Limbaugh on Decaf'

After a stint equally a conservative talk radio host with a manner he chosen "Rush Limbaugh on decaf,"  Pence made his first successful run for Congress in 2000.

"Global warming is a myth," Pence wrote at that time, claiming—incorrectly—that the Globe was hotter 50 years earlier. He scoffed at the possibility that the atmosphere could exist harmed by carbon dioxide, "a naturally occurring phenomenon in nature."

From his seat in the House of Representatives, Pence supported most of President George W. Bush'southward energy agenda, including abandonment of the Kyoto climate accord and the drive for expanded fossil fuel development.

But Pence parted ways with Bush-league when—amid skyrocketing oil prices—the president took upwards the crusade of reducing U.S. oil dependence. Pence voted confronting Bush'southward 2007 energy overhaul, which included Congress' first increase in U.S. fuel economic system standards in 32 years.

In his dozen years in Congress, but 4 percent of the votes Pence bandage were pro-environmental, according to the League of Conservation Voters. His greatest impact on climate policy, though, was in rallying fellow Republicans against President Barack Obama's clean energy agenda.

Pence Helped End Bipartisan Back up for Climate Action

Pence became chairman of the House Republican Conference, the GOP's third-ranking House position, as Obama entered the White House in Jan 2009. By June, the Autonomous-controlled Firm passed the showtime climatic change legislation always to get in through a chamber of Congress. The bill was based on cap-and-trade, an approach for setting limits on carbon emissions and selling permits to polluting companies, who could in turn trade the chits among each other. Such a market place-based system had been backed by both Obama and his opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Merely bipartisan support for climate activity was near to crumble, and Pence would play an important part in its demise.

To serve as his Republican conference chief of staff, Pence tapped Marc Short, a political operative with contacts throughout the conservative donor world. Curt had been executive director of the Young America's Foundation, one of a network of nonprofits funded by wealthy conservatives like the Koch brothers to promote conservative values and policies.

Brusk arranged for Pence's first invitation to speak at one of the Koch brothers' secretive fund-raising seminars in June 2009, according to a 2017 profile by The New Yorker'due south Jane Mayer. In the run-up to that outcome, Pence was one of the first members of Congress to sign the No Carbon Tax pledge that the Koch-funded advancement group, Americans for Prosperity, was circulating against the cap-and-merchandise legislation. Pence urged other members to sign.

"I recall the scientific discipline is very mixed" on climate modify, Pence told MSNBC host Chris Matthews that spring. "Expect, I'm all for clean air. I'grand all for clean coal technology. I'm sure reducing CO2 emissions would exist a positive thing." Merely, Pence said, "Yous're going to see Republicans… oppose this massive national free energy tax."

Americans for Prosperity amplified that bulletin in a "Hot Air Tour" confronting "global warming alarmism" during the 2009 summer congressional recess. Opposition to cap-and-trade grew and Democrats never brought the measure out to a vote in the Senate.

In 2010, with the help of $45 1000000 from Americans for Prosperity, Republicans reclaimed the House bulk, killing chances for a climate neb—a major victory for Pence and the GOP.

Presently later, three Pence staffers moved to top posts in Koch organizations. Brusque became executive director of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. Short's deputy, Emily Seidel, took over as executive managing director of Americans for Prosperity. Pence's longtime spokesman, Matt Lloyd, would four years afterwards become director of communications for Koch Industries, a multinational corporation with interests in petroleum, natural gas, fertilizer and other products.

Pence, meanwhile, announced he was running for Indiana governor. He'd have the Koch brothers' support, and an opportunity to amp up his fight against Obama'south climate agenda.

An All-Out Battle Confronting Obama'due south Clean Power Plan

The Koch brothers contributed $300,000 to Pence's successful $15 one thousand thousand entrada for Indiana governor in 2012, placing them among the new governor's top five donors.

As governor of Indiana, a country second only to Texas in coal consumption, Pence could exert a major influence on national climate policy.

The previous Republican governor, Mitch Daniels, had established a voluntary renewable free energy standard and launched a major free energy efficiency programme for Indiana. But with Pence as governor, the Republican legislature worked to dismantle those programs.

In 2014, when Indiana lawmakers passed a repeal of the free energy efficiency initiative , Pence took care non to cheer the demise of the popular program. He said he had mixed feelings, but he killed the program decisively when he neither signed nor vetoed the legislation, assuasive the repeal to become police in 2015 without his signature.

Years later, studies showed that Pence had reason to avoid taking credit for the commencement-ever state repeal of free energy efficiency rules. Doing abroad with the requirements cost Indiana consumers $140 one thousand thousand more in utility bills from 2015 to 2019, and may have slashed job creation in the state past 37 percent, according to 1 analysis.

In Pence's 2015 State of the Country accost, he declared an all-out battle against the Obama administration's Clean Power Program, a signature climate change initiative aimed at reducing carbon emissions from coal plants. "Indiana is a pro-coal state," Pence said. "We must continue to oppose the overreaching schemes of the EPA until we bring their war on coal to an finish." Pence was rejoined by his one-time spokesman, Matt Lloyd, who had spent a twelvemonth leading communications for Koch Industries, but returned to become the governor'southward deputy primary of staff. Pence became one of a handful of governors who announced they would defy the Clean Power Plan, and Indiana joined 23 other states in the lawsuit that ultimately stayed the regulations.

The Trump administration eventually repealed the Clean Power Plan, merely during the 2016 election, many corporate foes of climate policy, like the Koch brothers, had doubts almost Trump. Charles Koch famously said the option between Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was like choosing between cancer and a heart attack.

Merely Brusk said in Mayer'south New Yorker contour that one cardinal Trump move helped dissolve hostilities betwixt him and the Koch brothers: He selected Mike Pence as his running mate.

"The Kochs were very excited about the vice-presidential pick," said Brusk, who became one of several Koch loyalists installed in the Trump assistants. Short left the Koch brothers' Freedom Partners to serve as Trump's director of legislative diplomacy—his chief liaison to Capitol Hill—in 2017 and 2018. Last yr, Short moved back to Pence's side as his primary of staff.

Trump's Mr. Inside

Trump may govern with open up disdain for the Washington establishment, authorities experience and political tact, merely he has relied heavily on Pence—who exudes all three—for outreach to key constituencies. "He gets forth with people, I think, much ameliorate than I exercise," Trump said, remarking on Pence's success in dealing with governors on the coronavirus.

One key interest group for which Pence has served every bit become-between is the fossil fuel industry. Lobbying disclosure records testify the American Petroleum Establish lobbied Pence on the Dakota Access and Keystone Forty pipelines, and the National Sea Industries Clan visited him to talk most offshore drilling.

In 2020, Halliburton began lobbying the vice president on problems specified merely as "authorities relations," after the oil services behemothic hired a Pence friend, Bob Grand, an Indianapolis-based lawyer and political fundraiser, as its lobbyist.

Last year, Pence visited oil industry officials in the Permian Basin in West Texas to promote Trump'due south new trade deal with Mexico and Canada and to raise campaign funds. "Let me bring greetings from someone who loves American energy and loves the state of Texas," Pence said, adding, "nosotros got America out of the disastrous, job-killing Paris climate accord."

Only when Pence addresses a broad audition on climatic change, he walks a fine line, expressing ecology business organization while touting emptying of environmental protections.

Last year, when CNN's Jake Tapper asked the vice president if he believed that climatic change was a threat, Pence said, "I retrieve the reply to that is going to be based upon the scientific discipline."

"Well, the science says yes," Tapper said. "I'm asking what you call back."

Pence avoided a direct answer, saying, "What we won't do, and the Clean Power Program was all most that, was hamstringing energy in this land, raising the cost of utility rates." Pence added, "I think we're making great progress reducing carbon emissions. America has the cleanest air and water in the world."

Although critics charge Pence of verbal tap-dancing, information technology has proved to be an effective strategy over his two decades of back up for the fossil fuel manufacture. Corporate opponents of climate action have invested heavily in placing Pence where he is today. At the nexus of power, Pence puts a genial face on the blockade of the U.S. climate policy he has helped to build.

Reporter, Washington, D.C.

Marianne Lavelle is a reporter for Inside Climate News. She has covered environment, science, law, and business organization in Washington, D.C. for more than 2 decades. She has won the Polk Honour, the Investigative Editors and Reporters Award, and numerous other honors. Lavelle spent four years equally online energy news editor and writer at National Geographic. She spearheaded a project on climate lobbying for the nonprofit journalism organization, the Heart for Public Integrity. She likewise has worked at U.South. News and Earth Report magazine and The National Police force Journal. While there, she led the award-winning 1992 investigation, "Unequal Protection," on the disparity in environmental law enforcement against polluters in minority and white communities. Lavelle received her master's caste from Columbia University Graduate Schoolhouse of Journalism, and is a graduate of Villanova University.