Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign is a climate disaster. By Dan Farber, Evan George

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign is a climate disaster

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views on the environment, vaccines and government agencies likely will attract Republican voters.

Hans Pennink/Associated Press 2019

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s impending announcement that he is running for president as an independent makes it abundantly clear: The once leading environmental lawyer is now an imminent danger to climate progress.

It’s a shocking about-face for a man who rightfully earned a reputation as an environmental crusader. 

Kennedy grew up in the 1960s as the modern environmental movement took shape around the campaign against toxic pesticides, spurred like so many young activists at the time by the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” Kennedy later viewed listening to Carson speak about ecology as one of the most treasured moments of his youth. After working at the Natural Resources Defense Council, he went on to become an environmental lawyer and helped found the Waterkeeper Alliance. He taught and led an environmental law clinic at Pace University in New York. Over the years, many of us in the environmental movement looked up to him for his crusade to clean up the Hudson River.

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Kennedy’s accomplishments in litigation, teaching and activism for clean waterways, Indigenous rights and renewable energy should not be erased. But those bona fides cannot mitigate the reality that today, Kennedy the candidate is an anti-environment and anti-science zealot.

Since Kennedy launched his campaign for president in April, he has stayed largely silent on climate change. The phrase is barely mentioned on his campaign’s website.

“Climate change has made the environment a divisive issue, but there are many policies that make sense to skeptics and activists alike,” it reads. “We will emphasize those and rebuild a broad environmental coalition to clean up this country.”

Make no mistake: Creating a big tent open to climate skeptics will only achieve one thing — empower business interests opposed to climate action. 

Much like how Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views — a wholly inaccurate and dangerous rhetoric in its own right — are steeped in populist conspiracy theories, his views on environmental regulation follow the same playbook. In a campaign video posted to social media focused on climate change, Kennedy says, “This crisis is being used as a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls, the same way the COVID crisis was, and it’s the same people: it’s the intelligence agencies, it’s the world economic forum, it’s the billionaire boys’ club at Davos.” His energy approach is “free markets and not top-down control.” That must be music to the ears of Republican donors and the fossil fuel industry.

Then there’s his deep distrust of the Environmental Protection Agency, which rivals that of the Republicans who want to abolish it for other reasons: “I’ve spent 40 years litigating against the agencies, the regulatory agencies in the United States,” he said in an interview. “So I can tell you that the Environmental Protection Agency is effectively run by the oil industry, the coal industry and the pesticide industry.”

That’s nonsense.

Like many conspiracy theories, his statement starts with a kernel of truth. Federal agencies can be overly influenced by the businesses they regulate. But for a lawyer of his experience to say the EPA is run by industry betrays how he has lost touch with reality. In recent years, it’s been the fossil fuel industry and their allies among Republican state attorneys general who have sued repeatedly to try to stop EPA and other agencies from getting tough on tailpipe and power plant emissions.

Ultimately, Kennedy’s chances of winning the presidency are slim. But his long-shot status was never the concern. It’s his potential role as a spoiler that makes his campaign so concerning.

Till now, he had run as a Democrat, garnering a polling average of about 15% in the primary, according to RealClearPolitics. What will happen running as an independent is unknown. Some observers think Kennedy might pull more votes away from Trump than Biden, but the election is too uncertain and too crucial for comfort. A poll conducted by John Zogby Strategies for the American Values 2024 PAC, which supports Kennedy, looked at a matchup among Trump, Biden and Kennedy as the independent candidate. The result: Trump and Biden tied at 38% with Kennedy at 19%. 

A victory over Biden by any of the Republican candidates would be a serious setback for the climate policies advanced by the Inflation Reduction Act, various White House initiatives and regulatory rulemaking. But a second Trump administration would create a climate catastrophe. Trump dismantled climate policies and rolled back more than 100 environmental rules governing clean air and water — without being particularly organized. In a second term, he’s pledged to radically transform the civil service, including environmental agencies. The stakes are too high and the margins are potentially too close for anyone concerned about the environment to view Kennedy as a safe vote for the climate.

Several of Kennedy’s family members have already spoken out against him. Those of us who care about solving the climate crisis also have a duty to speak out about his split with environmentalism or else risk conveying a message of tacit approval.

RFK Jr. should be disavowed, not just ignored. 

Dan Farber is an environmental law professor and faculty director of the Center on Law, Energy and the Environment at UC Berkeley. Evan George is communications director of the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.