As a decorated Navy officer who deployed six times, Elaine Luria knows that climate change is a threat multiplier across the world. As a resident of Virginia's shoreline community, she knows that rising seas affect jobs and homes across the district. And as the owner of a mermaid-themed small business, she knows that offshore oil drilling hurts the local economy.
Democrat Elaine Luria, a Navy veteran who knows something about sea level rise and national security, is running against climate peacock Republican Scott Taylor in Virginia’s Second District, also known as the nation’s shipyard.
We’re backing Elaine because she has a unique perspective on climate change as a national security issue with very local implications. Her Hampton Roads-area district is home to both the largest shipyard in the world, and one of the fastest sinking sections of America’s coastline.
The scandal-plagued incumbent, Scott Taylor, is a climate peacock. He joined the Climate Solutions Caucus but has never once voted for a climate solution. Instead, he’s voted to drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of the GOP tax scam bill (HR 1). He’s voted to exempt coal plants from meeting clean air standards (HR 1119). Most recently, he sided with the vast majority of House Republicans in an anti-carbon tax resolution (H.Con. Res. 119).
The seat is the kind of swingy district that Democrats must win in order to flip the House in 2018. Trump beat Clinton 48-45, but the following year it swung toward the Democratic nominee for governor, Ralph Northam. Together, we can add a unique perspective on climate change to Congress while ousting a do-nothing anti-climate peacock.
