Climate Hawks Vote Civic Action is an advocacy organization that promotes left-leaning environmentalist policies. Much of the organization’s work revolves around pushing Democratic politicians further to the left on environmentalist issues and advocating against the use of any conventional energy sources, including zero carbon nuclear energy. The organization has a relatively small budget and no full-time employees yet is frequently quoted in the press as a voice for far-left climate activists. ¹

The organization also operates a super PAC, Climate Hawks Vote Political Action. ²

Background

Climate Hawks Vote Civic Action was founded in 2013 by Democratic political operative and activist R.L. Miller, who serves as Chairwoman of the California Democratic Party environmental caucus. Miller stated that the idea for the organization was born as former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (D) considered a run for the United States Senate. Miller decried the Montana Democrat for being an “open cheerleader” for the coal industry and founded Climate Hawks Vote as an “idea that we need to do is make climate change more of a litmus test within the democratic party than it already is.” The group has since grown to a national focus and concentrates on attacking Democrats who do not perceive climate change as a “top-tier issue.” ³

The group touts its small-donor approach and describes itself as a “counterweight” to billionaire Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate and openly speculates that the organization has more donors than NextGen, which is largely funded by Steyer. The group endorses in a variety of Democratic primary elections at all levels from city council to U.S. House and Senate. ³

Political Activity

Much of the group’s effort has been towards formulating a scorecard that ranks members of congress on their outspokenness and votes on environmentalist issues. The groups scorecard is considered more aggressive on issues than the left-of-center League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard, which ranks members on various environmentalist votes and gives members advance notice when they are considering a certain measure for scoring purposes. ⁴

Climate Hawks Vote has endorsed several candidates in elections dating back to the 2014 election cycle, the group currently focuses endorsements on candidates who support a Green New Deal, an environmentalist proposal criticized as a “radical, top-down socialist makeover of the entire U.S. economy.” ⁵ The group focuses its endorsements on Democratic primaries, touting that its endorsed candidates won 6 of 8 primaries in 2018. It endorsed incumbent Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). The group also backed then-California State Senate President Kevin de Leon’s unsuccessful far-left challenge to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). ⁶

During the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary, Climate Hawks Vote somewhat praised Vice President Joe Biden’s climate plan. In response to Biden’s plan, Climate Hawks Vote founder R.L. Miller stated that the plan was worthy of “Definitely a B-plus grade when we were expecting C-minus.” adding further that “It’s great to see that he’s more or less embraced the ‘No Fossil Fuel Money’ pledge and the Green New Deal.” ⁷

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

In May of 2021, Climate Hawks Vote was one of 715 groups and businesses listed as a co-signer on a letter to the leadership of the U.S. House and Senate that referred to nuclear energy as a “dirty” form of energy production and a “significant” source of pollution. The letter asked federal lawmakers to reduce carbon emissions by creating a “renewable electricity standard” that promoted production of weather dependent power sources such as wind turbines and solar panels, but did not promote low carbon natural gas and zero carbon nuclear energy. ¹

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ⁸ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ⁹

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1. Letter from Center for Biological Diversity et. al. to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Joe Manchin, and Rep. Frank Pallone. “RE: CONGRESS SHOULD ENACT A FEDERAL RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY STANDARD AND REJECT GAS AND FALSE SOLUTIONS.” May 12, 2021. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/energy-justice/pdfs/2021-5-12_600-Group-Letter-for-RES.pdf?_gl=1*1c9h3t8*_gcl_au*MTc3NjM3MTM1Mi4xNjg5OTU1MzAz
2. “About” Climate Hawks Vote. Accessed April 26, 2020.  http://climatehawksvote.com/about/
3. Loftus-Farren, Zoe. “Climate Hawks Vote Swoops onto the Election Scene”. Earth Island Journal. November 3, 2014. Accessed April 26, 2020. https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/climate_hawks_vote_swoops_onto_the_election_scene/
4. Jacobs, Jeremy. “A scrappy group whose scorecard isn’t for the fainthearted”. E&E News. March 22, 2016. Accessed April 26, 2020. https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060034391
5. McConnell, Mitch. Twitter Post. March 25, 2019, 5:18 P.M. Accessed March 29, 2019. https://twitter.com/senatemajldr/status/1110289975386492929
6. “Endorsements” Climate Hawks Vote. Accessed April 26, 2020.  http://climatehawksvote.com/endorsements/endorsements-2018/
7. Siegel, Josh. “Biden manages not to offend centrists or climate hawks with ‘B-plus’ plan”. Washington Examiner. June 4, 2019. Accessed April 26, 2020.  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/biden-manages-not-to-offend-centrists-or-climate-hawks-with-b-plus-plan
8. “Nuclear explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php
9. “The Science of Sustainability.” The Nature Conservancy. October 13, 2018. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/the-science-of-sustainability/