Washington, DC – To wrap up Climate Week, Attorneys General Rob Bonta of California, Andrea Campbell of Massachusetts, and Phil Weiser of Colorado sat down with Ayman Mohyeldin on MSNBC to discuss growing importance Democratic AGs have in providing environmental safeguards to secure our country’s future. 

Key highlights: 

• “When we say climate justice… it’s not just about rising sea levels and of course extreme weather and extreme heat we are all experiencing, it is also about the air quality that our constituents have to deal with,” AG Campbell said. “Making sure their air and water [are] not polluted. It’s also climate justice. Also when we transition to clean energy, making sure it’s affordable for our constituents…and then using our offices in our litigation tools, our legislative tools, all of our tools, our grantmaking tools to address these real and significant experiences that our constituents see themselves in every single day.”

• “We need action. We need people who follow the science. We need AGs like AGs Campbell and Weiser,” AG Bonta said. “Litigation is absolutely one lane and one pathway to hold those accountable who have created the crisis we are in through their deception and their lies.”

• “So part of the way that we meet our climate challenge is sending a clear message to companies that we need you to be responsible actors, good stewards, and as AG Bonta said, be straight with the American public about what challenges are out there, what opportunities are out there,” AG Weiser said. “In the case of PFAS with these forever chemicals, there was deception. There was real harm because these forever chemicals get into your bloodstream and they stay there…The money we are going to get from lawsuits like this…can remediate, can address the harm and our water systems right now that have these forever chemicals in them.”

• “The best thing about being an AG right now is we understand that to address climate issues, we have to do it across state lines,” said AG Campbell. “I’m really proud that Massachusetts was the first to have filed a lawsuit against Exxon and we work with California, New York, Colorado, and our other Democratic AG’s to hold other corporate players accountable, including in the PFAS context and so much more. But constituents really have to understand that right now when it comes to climate issues, the Democratic AGs are really on the front lines using every tool in our toolkit to protect them and to protect their environment…The collective action we are taking is significant but our desire I think is also to make sure people understand who your AG matters especially in the context of climate justice and environmental justice work.”

• AG Bonta concluded, “The contrast could not be sharper with respect to Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation and their view of the world – the future of climate action or rather the lack thereof. They deny the science, they are putting their head in the sand, they want to roll back critical environmental regulations, they want to take steps that will increase global warming more than its current trajectory. They are not the solution and Democratic AGs, the democratic ticket right now, will face the problem in order to fix it.” 

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