As governor of Minnesota, Democrat Tim Walz led the state in adopting some of the strictest car pollution rules in the country and setting a clean electricity standard with a 2040 goal for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions — aggressive actions to curb climate change that have prompted environmental advocates to cheer his selection as vice presidential nominee.
Yet as a six-term congressman representing a largely rural red district south of Minneapolis, Walz was hardly known for forging an ambitious climate record, choosing instead to enmesh himself in agriculture issues and assert his expertise in veterans affairs, drawing from his years of service in the Army National Guard.
In fact, to the extent he did sponsor energy bills and take up environmental causes, they often were at odds with the mainstream Democratic position.
Walz voted, for example, to complete construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and was at one point touting legislation with Republicans that would fund infrastructure projects with revenue from expanded oil and gas drilling.
In interviews with nearly a dozen former Democratic congressional aides, advocates and lawmakers who were working on Capitol Hill or in the environmental policy space during the years Walz was a member of Congress, few if any could recall him making any significant or long-lasting impression in the climate arena.
“He tended to focus on veterans issues and agriculture too, of course,” recalled former Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), who was elected the same year as Walz. “He usually was very good on environmental stuff, but that wasn’t his priority.”
Many of the aides and advocates looking back on Walz’s record, however, were clear-eyed about how to explain his journey to becoming the kind of environmental champion that climate hawks say has instantly boosted the green bona fides of the Democratic presidential ticket, which is being led by the current vice president, Kamala Harris.
They say Walz evolved from a Midwestern Democratic congressman representing an expansive rural district to a blue state governor facing off against the Trump administration’s attacks on science.
“When you’re governor, clearly you’re going to take on a broader set of issues as priorities. Climate change is no exception,” said Trent Bauserman, who worked in the Obama White House and as climate adviser to former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “I think he has evolved as his role has evolved and the issue of climate change has evolved.”
Observers said it’s not so much that Walz himself changed his tune on climate but that the times changed.
Climate action has, for instance, become a mainstream Democratic Party position — a necessity, they argue, in the face of intensifying weather, gripping heat and eroding coastlines.
“As the climate crisis has worsened over time, politically, you cannot be a Democrat of any stature and not take tackling this issue with the seriousness it requires,” Bauserman said.
“And if you’re a governor,” Bauserman added, “where so much climate action is on the state level, it’s going to be an issue that any Democratic governor will want and needs to take the lead on.”
One former Walz congressional aide, granted anonymity to recall private legislative strategy discussions, agreed that the “issue of climate change has evolved” over the course of his old boss’s political career, and Walz has evolved in turn.
“He’s one of those policymakers who, he always says, ‘If facts aren’t on your side, you don’t try to change the facts,'” the aide recalled. “‘You try to change your position.'”
‘One of the proudest votes’
Seth Schuster, a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, described Walz as having been consistent throughout his career in his support for the environment.
“Governor Walz grew up hunting and fishing, and he has worked for his entire career to conserve our public lands and protect our water,” said Schuster in a statement.
“As vice president, he will continue his life-long commitment to protecting our environment from climate change deniers like Donald Trump, who is publicly promising to rip up climate change protections in exchange for campaign donations from big-oil billionaires.”
Walz won a seat in Congress in 2006 after a career in the military and public education. He beat a six-term Republican incumbent in the race to represent Minnesota’s 1st District, a sliver along the state’s south from South Dakota to Wisconsin.
He served on the committees on Veterans’ Affairs, Armed Services, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Agriculture, where his mandate was to represent farm interests at the federal level. He did so, in part, by voting to ease restrictions on water permitting and pesticides against the preference of environmentalists.
Russell Kenneth DeGraff, a top climate aide to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during her time as minority leader, recalled there were “issues [Walz] was very strong about, that we needed to be aware of, like biofuels. … He was always pushing for corn to be made as cleanly as possible.”
When Democrats were thrust back into the minority after the 2010 midterm elections, Walz took votes in support of the Keystone XL pipeline to carry crude oil from Canada into the U.S.
He also championed legislation in multiple Congresses that would have opened the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic and Pacific waters to oil and gas leasing, with proceeds funding alternative energy, conservation and infrastructure projects — a “drilling for highways” proposal.
Many Republicans scoffed at the idea of using leasing revenue for clean energy. The framework had similarly little support among climate hawks who see expanded fossil fuel production, for whatever reason, as anathema to environmental protection.
But looking back, environmentalists noted Walz also took tough votes against the urging of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has a major presence in his state.
The most salient example came in 2009, when he spent weeks weighing the pros and cons of his party’s sweeping climate legislation known as “cap and trade” or “Waxman-Markey,” after the bill’s chief architects: former Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the latter of whom is now a senator.
Walz eventually decided to help Democrats narrowly pass the bill in the House before it died in the Senate. It was a vote that caused political headaches back home and helped unseat many other vulnerable Democrats.
Jamie Long, a Democrat serving in the Minnesota House who was a senior aide for progressive Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) during Walz’s tenure in Congress, said the Waxman-Markey vote was “one of the proudest votes [Walz] took.” Ellison is now Minnesota’s attorney general.
Other observers recalled Walz was unafraid of any political fallout. “He had a reputation for honesty and transparency,” said David Kieve, president of the green group EDF Action. “If you ask him his opinion, he would tell you.”
‘Firm’ but never a ‘problem’
Walz’s collegiality and trustworthiness gave him permission to break from the party when he had to, former congressional aides told POLITICO’s E&E News.
“I found him to be knowledgeable about what his community’s needs were and gentle but firm in his demand be met,” said DeGraff. “He worked very hard with the other members on their needs, and he always stood for the boldest possible climate action available to us at the time. … I cannot remember when he was ever a problem, where he wasn’t obvious or he wasn’t clear.”
DeGraff defined “bold climate action” not just in terms of cap and trade but the investments Democrats made through the appropriations process while in the majority.
He also said Walz always voted with the party while in the minority against Republican efforts to scale back green programs and spending.
During Walz’s 12 years in Congress, the League of Conservation Voters said he voted with greens 75 percent of the time, a fairly low score for a Democrat.
While that rating is partly explained by the fact that he missed several key votes when he was running for governor in 2018, a few votes stand out as blemishes on his environmental record, according to the group — including when he sided against environmental interests on nuclear storage, safeguards for toxic pesticides and regulating coal ash.
Walz also occasionally declined to join Democratic efforts to block Republican policy riders on spending bills, voting with the GOP to exempt logging in the National Forest System from the National Environmental Policy Act and prevent EPA from supporting agriculture worker protections.
Craig Auster, vice president of political affairs at LCV, in an interview last week expressed no concern about those “anti-environmental” votes. “I think we don’t usually agree with anyone, especially over hundreds of votes. If you look at the full scope of his record, it’s very strong.”
Walz was also a big booster of nuclear energy during his time in Congress, in 2009 reaching across the aisle to join with a fellow Minnesotan, former GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen, to demand their state repeal its ban on new nuclear power plants.
Democrats have since grown more united in backing nuclear power as a tool in the fight against climate change. But during Walz’s time on Capitol Hill, the party was largely wary of it, worried about risks to health, safety and the environment.
“He did explicitly express support for nuclear back as a congressman as well as for lifting the nuclear moratorium in the state of Minnesota,” said Darrick Moe, CEO of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association. “And that nuclear support wasn’t a clear consensus for Democrats back then.”
This story also appears in Greenwire.
