Senate candidate James Talarico lavished praise on a left-wing activism group that worked to eliminate Texas’ oil and gas industry in an unearthed video obtained by Fox News Digital. [some emphasis, links added]
Talarico participated in a June 2024 organizing call celebrating the expansion of Third Act, a climate advocacy and protest group for individuals over 60, into the Lone Star State.
At the time, the organization was ramping up efforts to isolate the fossil-fuel industry by pressuring major banks to cut financial ties with the sector and targeting the buildout of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals on the Texas Gulf Coast.
“This is the frontline in the fight to save democracy and save our planet, and so your arrival couldn’t come at a better time,” Talarico, who was serving in his third term as a state representative, told the group in prerecorded remarks.
“I look forward to working alongside all of you in this important work, and I just want to thank you for coming to Texas.”
Later in the call, Talarico described the climate activists’ efforts as the highest calling, describing it as “the most important work in the most important time in the most important place.”
Two weeks after that call, Third Act Texas called for a transition to “100% renewable resources as soon as possible.”
Talarico’s comments appear to complicate his recent efforts to position himself as a defender of Texas energy workers while sharply criticizing Democrats who advocate eliminating oil and gas production.
The Democratic Senate nominee and fundraising juggernaut is seeking to flip a Senate seat held by Republicans for nearly four decades by distancing himself from his more radical stances.
He will likely need support from independent and moderate voters, including some of the 470,000 people employed in the oil and gas industry, to defeat GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton in November.
“The idea that politicians in Washington think they can just eliminate this industry, eliminate these jobs — it’s something we’re going to have to fight against,” Talarico said on a podcast in January with Democratic House candidate Bobby Pulido.
“Too many people in our party talk about eliminating oil and gas. And one, it’s just not practical, and two, it would do so much damage to our state and do damage to our entire country, which relies on our industry here in Texas.”
Third Act was heavily involved in the climate movement’s #StopLNG campaign and boasted that it “successfully pressured” the Biden administration to pause new LNG export facilities in early 2024.
The group’s Texas chapter also calls for the eventual elimination of LNG and all fossil fuel production on the Texas Gulf Coast, according to a statement on its website. …
In 2021, Talarico authored an aggressive climate bill that would have enacted strict caps on greenhouse gas emissions, including a 90% reduction below 1990 levels by 2050.
While the measure left implementation to state regulators, such drastic emissions reductions in the nation’s largest oil- and gas-producing state would have likely required sweeping changes to the fossil-fuel industry.
The Senate hopeful also introduced legislation that year requiring climate change lessons in K-12 schools to “inspire the next generation of climate activists,” The Washington Free Beacon reported.
By 2025, Talarico took positions on legislation indicating more support for the oil and gas industry. He backed legislation aimed at boosting LNG production through interstate cooperation and supported a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would redirect public funds to infrastructure projects in regions home to significant oil and gas production.
Talarico’s praise of Third Act Texas’ launch in June 2024 came as the group gained national attention for helping orchestrate sustained climate protests outside Citigroup’s headquarters in New York City to pressure the bank to halt investments in new fossil-fuel projects.
The group’s founder, environmental activist Bill McKibben, led “Third Actors” in staging a mock funeral procession and “die-ins” during the summer of 2024 that blocked the entrance to the bank’s headquarters.
At the end of its Summer of Heat on Wall Street campaign, the group bragged that around 200 of its members were arrested during the disruptive actions.
During the Texas organizing call, McKibben described Texas as a critical front in the climate movement because of its outsized role in fossil-fuel production.
“You’ve got, you know, half the hydrocarbons in the world down there, and too many of the hydrocarbon executives,” he said. “Don’t think of it as a problem, think of it as an opportunity. You can get an awful lot done, even more than we can up in Vermont.”
Top: Screencap of Senate hopeful James Talerico in a Zoom call with the Texas chapter of Third Act, a climate activism group for seniors, on June 12, 2024. (Vimeo/Third Act – June 12, 2024)
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