Bloomberg pumps big money into low-profile state races to boost climate policies
Billionaire and former presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is pumping as much as $20 million into three relatively low-profile state races that he thinks can build support for renewable energy and oversight of utilities and oil and gas companies.
The former New York mayor is seeking to boost a candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, a slate of three Democrats for the Arizona Corporation Commission, and a state lawmaker running to become North Carolina’s next lieutenant governor and who would chair that state’s energy council.
“We are looking at races that would have an impact on utilities and getting states to 100 percent clean economies,” said Brynne Craig, the campaign manager for the Bloomberg-backed Beyond Carbon. “Mike has believed that we need federal action but that we also need state action, and you can’t have one without the other.”
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Beyond Carbon has injected $2.5 million into the campaign of Democrat Chrysta Castañeda for a spot on the three-member Texas Railroad Commission, an influential agency that regulates oil and gas pipelines, monitors state water quality, oversees the closing of abandoned wells, and controls the Texas oil and gas industry’s emissions methane, a power greenhouse gas.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bloomberg-pumps-big-money-into-low-profile-state-races-to-boost-climate-policies/ar-BB1ayyo0?li=BBnb7Kz