A former staffer for a climate group behind efforts to ban gas stoves has landed a new role as "climate engagement director" for Vice President Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential campaign.
The Harris campaign has brought on Camila Thorndike, a self-styled "climate hype girl for democracy" who worked for two years at Rewiring America, Thorndike announced on social media this week. Rewiring America, an environmental group connected to a massive left-wing dark money network, has faced scrutiny from Republicans ever since one of its researchers, Talor Gruenwald, co-authored a study linking gas stoves to childhood asthma, the Washington Examiner reported .
The study gained influence among progressives and was promoted on social media by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. It was funded by a group called the Rocky Mountain Institute, the leader of which scored a meeting with Granholm, documents show. Subsequently, a commissioner on a federal consumer safety body said the group was mulling a gas stove ban, and Granholm's Energy Department introduced a federal gas stove efficiency rule expected to go into effect in 2028.
The latest iteration of the DOE rule is less stringent on gas stoves than a prior version, requiring "modest improvements" to some models to increase energy efficiency, according to the DOE. Still, restrictions on gas stoves have been polled as unpopular, and Republican attorneys general and energy advocacy groups argue the proposal is a free market overreach.
"Though anonymous campaign staffers have claimed Harris has reversed her green positions on everything from fracking to plastic straw bans, the candidate herself has said nothing," said Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of Power the Future, an energy advocacy group.
"We don’t need her words. Her actions say everything," Turner told the Washington Examiner. "Hiring climate radicals and claiming in her lone CNN interview 'my values haven’t changed' tell us she will prolong the stupid, misguided, China -friendly climate agenda of the Biden administration despite the economic hardship it has caused American families."
Harris's hiring of Thorndike will likely lead to further scrutiny from pro-fossil fuels groups and the GOP over a possible Harris administration cracking down on oil and gas. Republicans have continued to slam the Biden-Harris administration over its climate policies, which they say detract from economic growth and are counterproductive to energy independence.
Rewiring America, a project of a left-wing dark money group called the Windward Fund, has been tied to other policymaking in the Biden-Harris administration. It was notably involved in 2022 negotiations for Biden's Inflation Reduction Act spending bill, while its co-founder, Alex Laskey, participated in a climate event at the White House. Rewiring America was also listed by the DOE as a "better climate" partner and was featured by the White House in an April electrification announcement.
Thorndike was Rewiring America's director of policy programs before going on to become its deputy policy head and senior public engagement director. A former staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Thorndike once said the United States is in a "life-or-death situation for our planet and democracy."
The anti-gas stoves push from groups like Rewiring America led to investigations in Congress from Republicans, who said the proposed crackdown was bypassing congressional approval. To Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance trade group, a Harris-Walz administration will lead to a regulatory crackdown on energy.
"We fully expect that a Harris-Walz administration would continue the exact same policies of the Biden-Harris administration," Sgamma told the Washington Examiner.
In her LinkedIn job announcement, Thorndike praised Harris as "our future climate champion-in-chief."
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"Hello from official day one at Harris-Walz HQ!" she said. "It's an honor to help the movements I love elect our future climate champion-in-chief."
The Harris campaign did not return a request for comment, nor did Rewiring America.
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