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Trump
Meets With Al Gore on Climate Issues Amid Pressure From His Children
Effort
could clash with president-elect’s aim of boosting energy
production from fossil fuels
By MICHAEL C. BENDER
and AMY HARDER
Updated Dec. 5, 2016
8:39 p.m. ET
President-elect
Donald Trump’s children are urging him to seize on environmental
conservation as a potentially defining issue for his administration,
according to two people familiar with the discussions, an effort that
could clash with Mr. Trump’s aim of boosting energy production from
fossil fuels and his opposition to many federal regulations.
The familial push
prompted a meeting Monday in New York between Mr. Trump and former
Vice President Al Gore, an outspoken climate advocate who has
promoted energy efficiency and warned of the consequences of global
warming.
Mr. Trump’s
daughter, Ivanka, also met with Mr. Gore in Trump Tower as she
determines what role she will have in the next administration. The
35-year-old businesswoman emphasized family issues during the
presidential campaign and is exploring other policies she might help
shape, including energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions,
according to a person familiar with her thinking.
Ms. Trump, who
sought the meeting with the former vice president, has been a
moderating influence on her father’s blunt brand of conservatism.
Senior aides have said she is one of the few people in his circle
able to persuade the president-elect to change a position without
upsetting him.
Her sway was
apparent in his decision to support a guarantee for six weeks of paid
maternity leave, a departure from Republican orthodoxy.
But Ms. Trump’s
further involvement in policy issues would also underscore questions
about conflicts-of-interest for the Trump family and its global
business empire. Ms. Trump sat in on a Nov. 17 meeting between her
father and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, raising concerns about
the overlap between federal policy and the family’s private
business.
“They need to
figure out what the Trump children are going to do,” said Richard
Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer for former President
George W. Bush. “I don’t see anything wrong with a corporate
businesswoman being involved in a public policy discussion with the
Trump administration, but that appearance will be problematic even if
it’s legal.”
Jason Miller, a
spokesman for the Trump transition, said Monday that Mr. Trump will
speak about his company and his children’s role in his
administration at a news conference on Dec. 15.
Mr. Trump’s
position on environmental issues may not be entirely fleshed out. But
he has left little doubt of his desire to boost the coal industry,
beef up domestic energy production, cut regulations and take other
actions that worry environmentalists.
Mr. Trump’s eldest
son, Donald Trump Jr., said during the campaign his father would
“keep public lands public and accessible” while also pushing to
develop resources.
Mr. Gore has said
electing Mr. Trump could lead to a “climate catastrophe.” But
while Mr. Trump’s transition has reflected the value he places on
loyalty, he has also shown a taste for unexpected meetings with
former rivals and critics.
Asked about the Gore
meeting, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said: “There’s a
very small group of people in this country who’ve been president or
vice president,” and Mr. Gore is one of the few “folks who
breathe that rarefied air.”
Environmentalists
hope Ms. Trump’s session with Mr. Gore, one of the world’s most
outspoken and influential climate advocates, indicates she will
champion the cause.
The Trump family
bought an advertisement in 2009 in the New York Times calling for
legislation “to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control
climate change.” But in a tweet from February 2010, Ms. Trump
appeared to mock the idea global warming by noting that a
congressional hearing on it was canceled due to a blizzard. “Ironic
tidbit of the day,” she tweeted.
“Her position
largely remains a question mark, but the fact she’s reaching out to
people like Al Gore to try and understand this issue I think is a
good sign,” said Heather Zichal, a former White House energy and
climate adviser to President Barack Obama.
Mr. Gore described
the meeting as “very productive.”
“It was a sincere
search for areas of common ground,” Mr. Gore told reporters at
Trump Tower. “I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The
bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found
it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and
I’m just going to leave it at that.”
Mr. Trump has
repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.” In 2012, he tweeted
that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the
Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
Conservative backers
of the Trump administration said they weren’t worried about
Monday’s meetings altering Mr. Trump’s views on climate change.
“I’m not losing
any sleep over it,” said Chris Warren, spokesman for the American
Energy Alliance, a conservative energy group whose president, Tom
Pyle, is on Mr. Trump’s transition team. “I think President-elect
Trump has made it very clear that he doesn’t subscribe to Al Gore’s
radical, out-of-touch philosophy.”
Write to Michael C.
Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com and Amy Harder at amy.harder@wsj.com
|
Al
Gore Says Meeting With Donald Trump on Climate Change Was
‘Productive’
By MICHAEL C. BENDER
Dec 5, 2016 3:38 pm
ET
One month after
saying that Donald Trump “would take us toward a climate
catastrophe,” former Vice President Al Gore met with the newly
elected Republican on Monday in New York as he tries to extend an
olive branch on his top issue.
Mr. Gore met with
Mr. Trump and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, who is reportedly
interested in pursuing climate-change issues.
“I had a lengthy
and very productive session with the president-elect. It was a
sincere search for areas of common ground,” Mr. Gore told reporters
at Trump Tower. “I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The
bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found
it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and
I’m just going to leave it at that.”
During the campaign,
Mr. Gore criticized Mr. Trump’s stated positions on climate change,
including an October campaign stop in Miami for then-Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in which he said electing Mr.
Trump would lead to a “climate catastrophe.”
Mr. Trump has
repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.” In 2012, he posted on
Twitter that “the concept of global warming was created by and for
the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
“Climate change is
just a very, very expensive form of tax—a lot of people are making
a lot of money,” Mr. Trump said on Meet the Press in January. “I
know much about climate change. I’ve received environmental awards.
And I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China.
Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because
China does not do anything to help climate change.”
After the election,
Reince Priebus, chief of staff to Mr. Trump, said on Fox News that
the president-elect’s “default” position is that he thinks
“most of it is a bunch of bunk.”
Still. Mr. Gore has
said that he hopes Mr. Trump won’t undo President Barack Obama’s
ambitious climate agenda. “President-elect Trump said he wanted to
be a president for all Americans,” Mr. Gore wrote after the
election on the website of the Climate Reality Project, the advocacy
group he founded. “In that spirit, I hope that he will work with
the overwhelming majority of us who believe that the climate crisis
is the greatest threat we face as a nation.”
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