Comments Texas Democrat James Talarico made in 2020 about capitalism, White supremacy and climate change are back in the spotlight as he runs for U.S. Senate against Attorney General Ken Paxton.
CNN reported Tuesday that Talarico, then a 31-year-old state representative seeking a second term in the Texas House, made the remarks during a September 2020 virtual climate forum hosted by the Austin chapter of the Sierra Club. The forum included four other Texas House candidates.
Asked what lawmakers could do about the disproportionate effects of climate change on communities of color, Talarico said he was “thankful that young activists have really drawn the link between climate change and White supremacy and capitalism in our country.”
“And I think only ending the ways that all three of those oppressive systems work together are we gonna be able to begin the process of dismantling them,” he said.
Talarico also criticized the long-term outlook for Texas’s oil and gas industry at the same forum. “We all know that Texas has been a leader in oil and gas, but in many ways that’s like being the leader in cassette tapes in the 1980s,” he said. “That industry is not gonna last.”
“And if we wanna ensure we have an economy that’s gonna work for our children and our children’s children, we gotta be ahead of the curve and Texas has to lead instead of follow on this issue,” he added.
Similar language elsewhere
Talarico’s phrasing echoed language used by other progressive groups around the same period. Democratic Socialists of America’s 2019 Green New Deal principles called for “a revolutionary transformation to replace the capitalist social order based on exploitation and oppression” and described the climate fight as “a struggle against capitalism itself.”
The Sunrise Movement said in a May 2020 update that it was “necessary to dismantle the underlying systems of extraction, segregation, and racist inequality.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said in July 2020 that “these systems of oppression are linked” and that the country must “begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression, wherever we find it.” At an August 2020 DNC Youth Council panel, activist Ashley Nicole McCray spoke of “the destruction of colonization, white supremacy and capitalism.”
A long record of climate activism
Talarico’s climate involvement dates back to his time as a University of Texas at Austin student, when he took part in a 2009 student government push urging the city of Austin to divest from a coal-powered plant. He called the resulting resolution “a great success for environmentalists on campus.”
He also took part in the September 2019 Youth Climate Strike at the Texas Capitol, an event co-organized by Isra Hirsi, daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar.
After Texas’s deadly 2021 power-grid failure, Talarico introduced a “Climate Action Plan” that would have required the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050, citing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as an inspiration. The bill died in committee. Republicans have likened it to the Green New Deal, a comparison Talarico’s campaign has rejected.
In 2024, Talarico praised a left-wing climate activist group working to eliminate Texas’s oil and gas industry, telling members in prerecorded remarks, “This is the frontline in the fight to save democracy and save our planet.” He later called their efforts “the most important work in the most important time in the most important place.”
New ads in the Senate race
The resurfaced comments emerged the same day Lone Star Liberty PAC released two television ads in the Senate contest. One promotes Paxton’s record against large corporations, citing a $1.4 billion privacy settlement with Google over location and biometric data collection, and credits him with challenging food companies over dyes in cereal. It ends with the line “Ken Paxton, when they come after Texans, he comes after them.”
A second ad targets Talarico over votes the PAC says benefited China, claiming he voted to allow 162,000 acres of Texas land near military bases to go to Chinese ownership and to direct tax dollars to Chinese-owned businesses. It closes with, “China’s got Talarico. Texas needs Ken Paxton.”
