Two days before she officially launched her campaign for president, Kirsten Gillibrand made one of the smartest moves of her political career. “I signed the pledge today,” she told a group of climate change activists in New Hampshire on Friday. The senator from New York didn’t immediately specify which pledge she had taken, but it was obvious to those in attendance: Gillibrand had signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, promising not to accept any money from the oil, gas, or coal industries for her presidential campaign.

She’s not the first Democratic candidate to take the pledge. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and Washington Governor Jay Inslee have all signed the document administered by the No Fossil Fuel Money coalition.* “The bar for climate leadership is being set,” David Turnbull, the strategic communications director of Oil Change United States, a member of the coalition, said in a Friday statement. “We look forward to more candidates joining this trend as the Presidential primary continues to ramp up.”



Senators Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris, Congressman Beto O’Rourke, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg have not signed the pledge, according to its website. None of these campaigns’ press teams responded to requests for comment, except for a spokesperson for Harris who said the senator technically complies with the pledge but hasn’t actually signed it. That spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up asking why she doesn’t just sign it then.

The No Fossil Fuel Money pledge has long been the climate activist community’s litmus test for political candidates. But as the dire nature of global warming becomes clearer by the day—and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal grows more popular—the climate activist community and the Democratic voter base are increasingly aligned on the issue. Signing the pledge should be one of the easiest commitments the Democratic candidates have to make, and those who don’t may well be dooming their chances.

Refusing money from the oil, gas and coal industries may seem, at first glance, like a politically risky move. If the eventual Democratic nominee is to beat Donald Trump—the most likely eventual Republican nominee—they’ll need all the resources they can get. So why give up such a potentially huge source of revenue?

