The climate platform of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden appears to have lifted wholesale language from environmentalist nonprofits without attribution.
The similarity in language was first spotted online by Josh Nelson, the vice president of progressive and environmentalist cell phone company CREDO Mobile. "The paragraph in Joe Biden's climate plan about carbon capture and sequestration includes language that is remarkably similar to items published previously by the Blue Green Alliance and the Carbon Capture Coalition," he tweeted Tuesday morning.
Nelson cited two example of apparently copied language. "Biden's goal is to make CCUS a widely available, cost-effective, and rapidly scalable solution to reduce carbon emissions to meet mid-century climate goals," reads the Biden website.
Meanwhile, the website for the Carbon Capture Coalition states, "[our] goal is to make carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) a widely available, cost-effective, and rapidly scalable solution to reduce carbon emissions to meet mid-century climate goals."
Biden's website also claims that, "carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS) is a rapidly growing technology that has the potential to create economic benefits for multiple industries while significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions."
That, Nelson notes, mirrors the language of a 2017 letter to the Senate from the Blue Green Alliance: "Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a rapidly growing technology that has potential to create economic benefits for multiple industries while significantly reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions."
The apparent copying recalls plagiarism charges that sank Biden's very first presidential run in 1988, after he gave speeches that duplicated remarks first made by British Labor Party Leader Neil Kinnock. The then-Delaware Senator also went on to admit that he was punished as a student at Syracuse Law when he was caught plagiarizing a law review article.