JD Vance

Credentials

Background

James David (JD) Vance has been a Republican senator from Ohio since January 2023³ and was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate and would-be vice president for the November 2024 election.⁴ Vance was voted into the Senate to represent Ohio for the Republican Party in the 2022 midterm elections.⁵

Vance published his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, in June 2016.⁶ After graduating from Yale Law School,⁷ he worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.⁸

Since being elected senator for Ohio,⁹ Vance has introduced or co-sponsored numerous bills¹⁰ to repeal emissions reduction targets,¹¹ replace tax subsidies for electric vehicles with funding for diesel and gasoline vehicles,¹² and punish climate protestors more harshly.¹³ He has used his platform to oppose climate action and the scientific consensus that human activity causes climate change.¹⁴

An article from Politico reported that Vance “has multiple green investments in his portfolio, despite once calling environmental, social and governance investing a ‘massive racket to enrich Wall Street.’”¹⁵

Before his election to the Senate, JD Vance expressed support for renewable energy but later turned against climate action, which an article in Politico suggested was because the fossil fuel industry gave him more than $280,000 during his Senate election campaign in 2022.¹⁶

Between 2014 and 2017, Vance commented in emails to a friend that Trump is “morally reprehensible.”¹⁷

While not directly affiliated, Vance wrote the forward to a book by the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts.¹⁸ Vance also addressed the Heritage Foundation’s leadership summit in 2023. In their press release announcing his attendance, Vance celebrated the Heritage Foundation with his quote: “As conservatives, we owe so much to the Heritage Foundation and all that they’ve contributed to our cause over the past fifty years.”¹⁹ More recently, Vance was reported to have endorsed a Heritage Foundation report in 2017.²⁰

Stance on Climate Change

July 30, 2024

Vance posted on X on July 30, 2024, that “Kamala’s Green New Scam means the end of American manufacturing,” and included a video of an interview he gave to ABC News where he said the line that “Kamala Harris has doubled down on this green energy scam.”²¹

Kamala’s Green New Scam means the end of American manufacturing. https://t.co/Ha9QBuCpr0
— JD Vance (@JDVance) July 30, 2024

July 2024

At the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Vance gave a speech in which he labeled Joe Biden’s climate and energy plans “the green new scam.”²² Vance repeated this line in a speech following the announcement that Kamala Harris intended to run as the Democratic candidate for the November 2024 election, saying she “co-sponsored the ‘Green New Scam.’”²³

August 26, 2023

In an essay Vance published in The Marietta Times in 2023, he criticized Joe Biden’s climate and energy policy, arguing that it amounted to a “wanton harassment of fossil fuel companies, to the detriment of the American people,” continuing that “a war on traditional American energy is a war on the American standard of living.”²⁴

In December 2023, the US produced more oil than any country in history.²⁵

He has been a vocal proponent of hydraulic fracking in the U.S., particularly in his state of Ohio, arguing in the same Marietta Times essay that:²⁶

“I believe that right now is the time to double down on the Ohio energy industry. In order to maximize output in the Utica Shale, oil and gas producers require new infrastructure – pipelines and refineries, large and small.”

July 2022

Vance has consistently criticized and voted against measures to promote electric vehicles (EVs), including saying in July 2022 that “[t]he whole EV thing is a scam” because “if you plug it into your wall, do these people think there are Keebler elves back there making energy in the wall? It comes, of course, from fossil fuels.”²⁷

October 25, 2021

Vance gave a speech to the American Leadership Forum in which he said, “I’m skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man,” casting doubt on the human-made nature of climate change by adding, “It’s been changing, as others pointed out, it’s been changing for millennia.”²⁸

In the same speech, he criticized wind power in his state of Ohio, claiming Democrats’ climate plans resulted in “these ridiculous ugly windmills all over Ohio farms that don’t produce enough electricity to run a cell phone on.”²⁹

2020

Vance praised solar energy and said that while gas was an improvement over dirtier forms of fuel, it was not “the sort of thing that’s gonna take us to a clean energy future.”³⁰

Funding

Vance has received campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry totaling $352,037 between 2019 and 2024, according to the campaign finance database OpenSecrets.³¹

Key Quotes

August 19, 2024

Vance published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “JD Vance: Harris Wages War on U.S. Energy,” in which he argued that net zero alone was responsible for increases in energy costs in the U.S. that were pushing people into poverty.³² He criticized net zero, saying:

“The net-zero project is already stifling investment in the coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants that Americans rely on for reliable, affordable ‘base load’ electricity.”

Vance also argued that the U.S. pursuing net zero would be pointless “[w]ith China building a new coal plant every week” and would offshore jobs to China, resulting in a “lose-lose” for American jobs and the climate.

He used Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ endorsement of net zero as a means to attack her policy platform, saying, “Her policies make the environment worse while turning millions of Americans into paupers.”

August 26, 2023

In an essay Vance published in The Marietta Times in 2023, he criticized Joe Biden’s climate and energy policy, arguing that it amounted to a “wanton harassment of fossil fuel companies, to the detriment of the American people,” and continuing that “a war on traditional American energy is a war on the American standard of living.”³³

July 28, 2022

When interviewed on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, Vance said:³⁴

“Even if there was a climate crisis, I don’t know how the way to solve it is to buy more Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles. The whole EV (electric vehicle) thing is a scam.”

October 25, 2021

Vance gave a speech at the American Leadership Forum in which he said:

“I’m skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man,” adding, “It’s been changing, as others pointed out, it’s been changing for millennia.”³⁵

Key Actions

August 27, 2024

A report from the Guardian revealed that JD Vance wrote the forward to a book written by the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, titled Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America.³⁶ The media has publicized Roberts as the head of Project 2025, described by The Guardian as “the vast rightwing plan for a second Trump administration Democrats say shows the authoritarian threat posed by the GOP” despite the Trump campaign’s efforts to distance itself from Project 2025.³⁷

The Project 2025 manifesto, titled “Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise,” includes a promise to “[u]nleash American energy production to reduce energy prices”³⁸ by cutting subsidies for renewable energy and promoting and protecting fossil fuel energy.³⁹

May 23, 2024

Vance co-sponsored a bill led by Republican senator Ted Cruz titled the “Natural Gas Tax Repeal Act,” which proposed amending the Clean Air Act to repeal incentives to reduce methane emissions in natural gas systems through taxation.⁴⁰ The bill did not progress beyond introduction in the Senate.

March 23, 2024

Vance co-sponsored a senate bill that would cut all 2024 funding for the Environmental Protection Agency earmarked for implementing rules designed to enforce stricter standards of harmful pollutants from light- and medium-duty vehicles from 2027 onwards, or “any substantially similar rule.”⁴¹ The bill failed to make it through the Senate.

December 13, 2024

Vance introduced a senate bill titled the “Consequences for Climate Vandals Act,” which would increase the maximum criminal penalties faced by climate protestors who targeted “the National Gallery of Art and certain other buildings and grounds.”⁴² The bill did not progress beyond introduction in the Senate.

December 6, 2024

Vance co-signed a letter sent to the Environmental Protection Agency along with seven other senators from both the Democrat and Republican parties that urged the agency to reconsider its proposal to implement more-stringent emissions rules for steel production, which would reduce the amount of harmful toxins released in steel production.⁴³

The letter’s authors argued that the proposal would be ineffective and “dramatically undermine the domestic steel industry and national security while driving production overseas likely resulting in no net reduction in emissions from the steel industry globally.”⁴⁴

The bill did not progress beyond introduction in the Senate.

November 7, 2023

Vance wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency officials, pressuring them not to adopt proposed rules to protect steelworkers and communities near steel factories from carcinogenic emissions, claiming that these proposals “would impose new, unnecessarily burdensome requirements on coke production” because they would harm the U.S. economy.⁴⁵

September 28, 2023

Vance introduced a senate bill called the “Drive American Act,” which proposed repealing the $7,500 tax credit on electric vehicles introduced in the Inflation Reduction Act in favor of a credit of the same value for gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.⁴⁶ The act would provide up to $7,500 for a new vehicle, based on the vehicle’s payload and seating capacity, and would apply to individuals earning less than $150,000 or married couples earning less than $300,000. The bill did not progress beyond introduction in the Senate.

September 14, 2023

Vance co-sponsored a senate bill titled “Homeowner Energy Freedom Act,” which would “repeal certain provisions relating to taxpayer subsidies for home electrification, and for other purposes,” including incentives to improve energy efficiency in homes.⁴⁷ The bill did not progress beyond introduction in the Senate.

September 14, 2023

Vance sent a letter to President Joe Biden’s office and the Administrator Michael Regan of the Environmental Protection Agency, urging them both to repeal new, more-stringent emissions rules at steelworks, arguing that this “climate agenda poses the future of our nation’s steel production and industrial base.”⁴⁸

June 21, 2023

Vance supported a senate bill called the “Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act of 2023,” which would reduce the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to allow states to sell combustion engine vehicles that meet emissions standards.⁴⁹ The bill did not progress beyond the Senate.

March 14, 2023

Vance co-sponsored a senate bill that would amend the Clean Air Act to repeal the requirement that gasoline sold in the summer ozone season contain a maximum of 10 percent ethanol.⁵⁰ This bill did not progress beyond the Senate.

February 13, 2024

Vance co-sponsored a senate bill that would ‘protect’ all agricultural products from the need to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.⁵¹ The bill did not progress beyond the Senate.

February 2, 2023

Vance co-sponsored a senate bill titled “Stop Trying to Obsessively Vilify Energy Act” or the “STOVE Act,” prohibiting federal agencies from creating rules that would ban or restrict the use or purchase of appliances fuelled by natural gas.⁵² The bill did not progress beyond the Senate.

Affiliations

@JDVance1 on X (formerly Twitter). Note that this account no longer appears to exist. Archive available here.
@teamjdvance on Instagram.
JD Vance on Facebook.
JD Vance on Linkedin.