OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:04 PM – Thursday, September 26, 2024
Since Vice President Kamala Harris secured the Democrat nomination a few months ago, the Harris campaign has spent millions on private plane travel.
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Harris has made numerous assertions that climate change poses one of the greatest “existential threats” to humanity while out on the campaign trail, giving speeches about addressing the issue.
“There’s no question, we have to be practical. But being practical also recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to us as human beings,” Harris told CNN back in 2019. “Being practical recognizes that greenhouse gas emissions are threatening our air and threatening the planet and that it is well within our capacity as human beings to change our behaviors in a way that we can reduce its effects. That’s practical.”
Harris’ campaign has reportedly spent at least $3.8 million on private planes in less than six weeks, despite urging Americans to adopt lifestyle changes in order to combat climate change, according to Fox News, who cited the Federal Election Commission.
The Advanced Aviation Team, Private Jet Services Group, Principal Aviation, FlexJet, and other private jet companies received numerous payments from the Harris campaign between July 24th and August 30th.
The majority of the payments were made to Advanced Aviation, which provides eight-seater turboprop jets for three-hour trips and eight-seater ultra long-range jets, which, according to their website, offer a “comprehensive list of on-board amenities and sophisticated finishes” along with a flight attendant for trips lasting up to sixteen hours.
As it describes itself, FlexJet combines “first class meets world-class.” Following years of insistence that “we must treat the climate crisis as the existential threat that it truly is,” Harris has now begun requesting the private flights.
“The urgency of this moment is clear. The clock is no longer just ticking, it is… Banging. And we must make up for lost time. And we cannot afford to be incremental. We need transformative change and exponential impact. As nations, we must have the ambition that is necessary to meet this moment,” Harris said at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2023. “We must lead with courage and conviction, and we must treat the climate crisis as the existential threat that it truly is. It is, dare I say, our duty and our obligation. Not a choice.”
With the release of an aviation climate action plan, the Biden-Harris administration set climate targets for the sector, aiming for a 20% reduction in aviation emissions by 2030. The administration declared in August that programs aimed at achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from aviation by 2050 will receive $291 million from the Inflation Reduction Act.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) reported that private aircraft is “the most energy-intense form of air travel.”
According to NLM estimates, the average fuel use per passenger on a commercial aircraft is around 10 to 20 times lower than that of private flights.
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