In her latest proposal on the campaign trail, 2020 White House hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts unveiled her “Climate Justice Plan,” on Wednesday, in which she claims to have been a guardian protector of pension and health benefits for retired coal workers.
“Together, we will ensure that employers and our government honor the promises they made to workers in fossil fuel industries,” Warren writes in the proposal. “I’ve fought for years to protect pensions and health benefits for retired coal workers, and I’ll continue fighting to maintain the solvency of multi-employer pensions plans.”
Warren’s record however, shows just the opposite with the new presidential frontrunner once working on behalf of LTV Steel to gut benefits for retired coal miners.
In the 1990s, Warren helped write a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for the company attempting to dodge federal laws mandating the company to pay for its retired miners’ health benefits, according to the Boston Globe.
“Warren also helped write a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for LTV Steel in the 1990s, assisting the former industrial conglomerate in its fight against a congressional requirement that it pay millions of dollars into a fund for its retired coal miners’ health care,” the Globe reported.
The Boston newspaper reports that Warren made $10,000 for writing the petition.
The “Climate Justice Plan,” released by a candidate who has built a reputation in the race for publishing complex policy plans is the latest left-wing proposal to come from the Democratic Party’s newest progressive flag-bearer. In the proposal, Warren calls for $1 trillion in new spending in America’s low-income and minority communities vulnerable to climate change to clean up pollution and revitalize the local economies over the next decade. The plan also calls on the EPA and Department of Justice to crack down harder on polluters and requires all federal agencies to take carbon emissions into account when drafting new rules and regulations.
The Massachusetts senator’s plan goes further by directing federal agencies to develop new maps of vulnerable communities to better asses the risks of environmental disasters produced by climate change.
Warren’s plan comes as the senator begins to eclipse former Vice President Joe Biden’s frontrunner status in the race for the first time this election cycle. A series of new polls released this month boosted the Massachusetts liberal to new heights now leading the crowded Democratic presidential field going into next week’s primary debates in Ohio.
