Climate action advocates want Iowa voters to press candidates on change

DES MOINES - Advocates are hoping Iowa voters will consider climate change issues when choosing a presidential candidate in 2016.

The NextGen Climate and the Citizens' Climate Lobby have announced plans to infuse climate change issues into the 2016 political discussion. The advocacy groups want candidates from both parties who are vying for an open White House to discuss climate change issues, particularly as those candidates come through Iowa to compete in the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses.

'This is about to become the center of the political universe with the caucuses coming. … We all know that there's going to be presidential candidates coming through. There already are presidential candidates coming through,” said Rick Smith of the Citizens' Climate Lobby, Des Moines. 'We want climate change to be on their radar. We want to make sure that we have a dialogue with all of those presidential candidates, as well as elected officials, about climate change.”

Smith and Marshall Saunders, the founder of the non-profit organization, spoke Tuesday at the Iowa Capitol as guests of Iowa Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids.

Hogg, a climate change activist who has written a book on the subject, said he hopes Iowa voters from both political parties will press presidential candidates for their thoughts on climate change and consider their responses when casting a ballot.

It does not appear a majority of Iowa voters made that decision in November 2014, when they voted Republican Joni Ernst to the U.S. Senate despite the $5 million NextGen Climate spent trying to defeat her.

NextGen Climate, a political advocacy group largely funded by billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer of California, is taking a second crack at making climate change a wedge campaign issue. The group announced on Monday its expansive plans to force presidential candidates - Republicans in particular - to face questions on climate change.

'We need to win with climate on the ballot, not only because it's important to win to get the change in this election, but because if we don't get change in the next several years to begin reducing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere, that window will close on our ability to address the issue before it's too late,” said Chris LeHane, a chief strategist for NextGen Climate. 'And if that happens, the four horsemen of the climate change apocalypse will be unleashed by extreme weather.”

Reports say that Steyer spent roughly $70 million on the 2014 elections. Asked how much Steyer will spend in 2016, LeHane said, 'As much as it takes.”

NextGen spent heavily in four U.S. Senate races during 2014, including almost $5 million in Iowa, according to federal campaign finance records. The NextGen-supported candidates won two of those races, but not in Iowa, where Ernst defeated Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, in an open-seat race.

Hogg made note of NextGen's successes in Michigan and New Hampshire as examples of climate change as a voting issue.

'There are examples around the country where candidates who have taken a clear stand for climate action have been successful,” he said.

Steyer said in a postelection interview with National Public Radio that NextGen's 2014 effort laid the groundwork for an ongoing discussion of climate change issues.

Hogg hopes that discussion continues in Iowa as the nation selects its next president.

'This issue is not about a single election. This is about the coming decades for our country,” he said. 'America is not always the fastest country to act on an issue, but when we act on an issue we're almost always the best country to deal with the problem.

'We need Americans to draw on that great heritage and tradition we have and understand that we have solutions to the climate problem. We just need the political will to make them happen.”