{"id":18161,"date":"2026-01-25T12:01:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T12:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-are-shying-away-from-climate-messaging-one-of-their-own-is-fighting-back\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T12:01:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T12:01:38","slug":"democrats-are-shying-away-from-climate-messaging-one-of-their-own-is-fighting-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-are-shying-away-from-climate-messaging-one-of-their-own-is-fighting-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats are shying away from climate messaging. One of their own is fighting back."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One of Congress\u2019 loudest climate hawks is trying to fend off a push within his party to abandon calls to combat climate change as left-leaning agenda-setters are plotting to reclaim both chambers of Congress in the midterms.<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s a thing out there called a \u2018climate husher,’\u201d Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, posted as part of a long social media thread last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who cares about what fossil fuel pollution is doing to Earth\u2019s natural systems needs to ignore these so-called \u2018climate hushers\u2019 \u2014 people who think Dems should stop talking about climate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a later interview about his posts, Whitehouse warned these \u201cclimate hushers\u201d have also made their way into strategy conversations on Capitol Hill. He noted he\u2019s been present for some of them, which he described as \u201cpolling presentations made to the Senate Democratic Caucus in a so-called strategy retreat that didn\u2019t ask about climate change \u2026 There\u2019s this massive blind spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, Democrats have been handwringing over the best messaging on environmental issues to reach an electorate that cares about \u201ckitchen table\u201d matters \u2013 and doesn\u2019t uniformly consider the rapidly warming planet to be one of them. Environmentalists made a strong argument during the 2024 presidential campaign that the climate crisis should be a motivator in electing Kamala Harris \u2014 but the contest went to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Now Democrats are increasingly showing they have decided it\u2019s a losing message to tout the ways in which they\u2019d curb fossil fuel production to thwart the most dire effects of climate change. Instead, they\u2019re choosing to focus on policies that would lower energy costs and lean hard into affordability talking points embraced by Trump and congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n

Whitehouse understands the importance of talking about affordability \u2014 for years he\u2019s spoken about the climate crisis as a threat to the global economy.<\/p>\n

His social media thread notes that people are feeling the economic burdens of climate change throughout the country, from home insurance hikes to drops in property values.<\/p>\n

That’s the message Democrats should lean into, he said, rather than shy away from.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen leaders don\u2019t talk about something, enthusiasm falls among voters,\u201d Whitehouse wrote in his post. \u201cIn politics, you can often make your own wind, or you can make your own doldrums.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is something Democrats are grappling with on Capitol Hill. Interviews with a half dozen House and Senate Democrats revealed how many are still struggling with how to discuss climate change, a problem they consider existential but that doesn\u2019t register among voters\u2019 top immediate concerns.<\/p>\n

Some are talking nearly exclusively about competitive prices for clean energy \u2014 largely in hopes of beating Republicans at their own messaging game.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy theory of the case is that the argument that I\u2019ve been making for 30 years is finally breaking through,\u201d said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), a former clean energy professional.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe urgency of climate change means that we have to focus on it especially when it\u2019s not as salient with the American people, if we are to be the leaders we claim to be,\u201d he added. \u201cBut I think that\u2019s largely a separable conversation from what is the best way to talk about it in any given moment, that has the most ability to move public opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who is on track to be the next Senate Democratic whip, has a similar perspective.<\/p>\n

Last year, he removed \u201cclimate hawk,\u201d along with other self-descriptions, from his bio on X. And during an event this fall affiliated with New York Climate Week, he said that \u201cthose of us in the climate community who are used to making a more broad argument about where we are in the sweep of history have to get comfortable making a more immediate argument that says the reason prices are going up is a deliberate policy choice of the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schatz said in a statement last week that he and Whitehouse were united in their ideas around \u201cclimate action,\u201d but he also doubled down on the importance of affordability messaging at this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are think tanks and advocacy organizations that are dedicated to the proposition that climate action is incompatible with affordable energy, but those factional rivalries have been overtaken by events,\u201d Schatz said. \u201cCheap is clean, and clean is cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent actions from the Democrats\u2019 Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, or SEEC \u2014 of which Casten is vice-chair \u2014 have also focused squarely on energy costs and the ability of clean energy to lower Americans\u2019 bills.<\/p>\n

At a SEEC press conference earlier this month meant to respond to the last year of energy and environment policy under President Donald Trump, a roster of climate-focused Democrats spoke nearly exclusively about energy prices. \u201cTrump lied; Energy costs are up,\u201d read the main sign at the presser.<\/p>\n

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in an interview that Democrats need to focus on energy prices because Trump has used that as a justification for executive actions that bolster oil and gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople, when they see the ways in which the energy policies that are serving big oil are hurting their pocketbooks, it makes it more tangible for why folks should care, in addition to the welfare of the planet,\u201d Stansbury said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Republicans have picked up on the Democrats\u2019 shift in talking points and have used it to their advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou actually see on the left, this debate going on right now, where a lot of people within the Democratic Party, they are talking about how they\u2019ve lost the narrative, or the culture war, on climate,\u201d EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said on Fox Business this month.<\/p>\n

Left-leaning thinkers and independent analysts have also argued that Democrats may have gone too far in following the lead of environmental groups they say were out of touch with most Americans.<\/p>\n

Columnist Matt Yglesias argued in a New York Times<\/u><\/i> op-ed<\/u><\/a> that Democrats should not be hostile to oil and gas. Longtime energy expert Daniel Yergin wrote in Foreign Affairs<\/i> about the \u201ctroubled energy transition<\/u><\/a>\u201d and the need for a \u201cpragmatic path\u201d forward. And Veteran Democratic operative Adam Jentleson started the think tank the Searchlight Institute<\/u><\/a> to curb the influence of the \u201cgroups\u201d on party positions, including climate.<\/p>\n

Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce\u2019s Energy Subcommittee, downplayed the notion that congressional Democrats were at odds over how to message on climate change. Talking about affordability need not negate the focus on the impact of climate change, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they are one in the same,\u201d Castor said. \u201cTake my community in Florida. We\u2019re still recovering from Hurricane Helen and Milton and people understand that those storms were supercharged because the Gulf was very, very hot, very warm. And the rain was unlike anything we\u2019ve ever seen. So they are trying to afford rebuilding their homes and paying their property insurance and also suffering higher rate increases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitehouse in an interview acknowledged some shortcomings to Democrats\u2019 past depictions of climate change \u201cas sort of a moral imperative, as an intangible thing floating out there, something that will affect polar bears,\u201d but said the solution wasn\u2019t to be silent in calling out the harmful impacts of fossil fuel emissions and the influence of oil and gas companies on Trump administration policy.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, there’s only so much he can do to press his case. In recent months he has organized forums on climate change as the senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works panel, toured red states to talk about rising insurance rates related to natural disasters spurred by global warming and said he has commissioned his own polling on the issue.<\/p>\n

Those activities, plus delivering speeches and crafting social media posts, are among the limits of what he can achieve with his party in the minority and his colleagues making their own messaging choices.<\/p>\n

He isn’t giving up.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats and environmental groups\u2019 climate messaging for years has been crap, and so if you go back to that crap messaging, obviously it\u2019s not going to succeed,\u201d Whitehouse said. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean that the alternative is to throw in the towel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andres Picon and Timothy Cama contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Congress\u2019 loudest climate hawks is trying to fend off a push within his party to abandon calls to combat climate change as left-leaning agenda-setters are plotting to reclaim both chambers of Congress in the midterms. “There\u2019s a thing out there called a \u2018climate husher,’\u201d Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Environment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}