Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer is hosting a fundraiser next week for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Steyer made waves last year, spending $74 million in the midterm election to help candidates who want to fight climate change and oppose the Keystone XL oil pipeline. He plans to spend “whatever it takes” in the 2016 election, an adviser has said, toward similar goals.
{mosads}Clinton’s refusal thus far to take a public position on Keystone seems not to have put off Steyer enough to oppose her.
He and his wife, Kat, will host the lunch fundraiser May 6 at their San Francisco home, according to a Steyer ally. Politico first reported the fundraiser.
The “Conversation with Hillary” will come as part of a day of Clinton events in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’ll head to Los Angeles the following day for fundraisers, including one at the home of Esprit Holdings co-founder and big-time liberal donor Susie Tompkins Buell, and then travel to Silicon Valley the next day, according to The Associated Press.
Apart from avoiding Keystone, Clinton’s platform largely aligns with liberal environmentalists.
She supports efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including the Obama administration’s landmark carbon limits for power plants, and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, said “tackling climate change” will be at the top of the campaign’s agenda. Podesta, who was a top Obama adviser before joining the Clinton campaign, helped formulate the climate rule.
Steyer’s NextGen Climate group said earlier this month that its strategy for 2016 will focus on shaming Republican candidates for connections to the billionaire Conservative donors Charles and David Koch, and for their skepticism of climate change.
But the group expressed support for Clinton and said it would announce efforts regarding her later in the campaign process.