Next for Steyer: Put GOP candidates on climate change hot seat

Investor and philanthropist Tom Steyer of NextGen Climate America hosts the California Climate Leadership Forum at the Kaiser Center in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, December 15, 2014. Investor and philanthropist Tom Steyer of NextGen Climate America hosts the California Climate Leadership Forum at the Kaiser Center in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, December 15, 2014. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Next for Steyer: Put GOP candidates on climate change hot seat 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

San Francisco activist Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Super PAC said Monday that the billionaire Democrat will wage a campaign to put Republicans on the “hot seat” about climate change and spend “what it takes” for an aggressive new high-tech war room to track — and attack — GOP candidates in 2016.

The program, based at the NextGen headquarters in the Financial District — with satellite offices in Washington, D.C., and other cities — aims to put climate change at the top of the political agenda next year. It will focus its firepower on turning environmental concerns into a wedge issue, especially with young voters, Steyer’s lead strategist, Chris Lehane, said in a conference call Monday.

Lehane is a former Clinton White House spokesman and San Francisco strategist who has been dubbed “the Master of Disaster” for his expertise in ruthless political rapid response. He said the social-media-heavy hot-seat effort will focus on “Koch Republicans” engaged in “science denial’’ — starting with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who is expected to announce his 2016 bid for the White House on Tuesday.

The effort seeks to counter a pledge by the billionaire Republican brothers Charles and David Koch and their allies to spend nearly $1 billion in the 2016 election, he said.

Going after Paul

Lehane says Steyer’s group will confront Paul, who has suggested that scientific studies on global warming “are not conclusive” and that climate change “may or may not be true,” with a lie detector to challenge him to talk straight on the issue. The group plans to use the Twitter hashtag #bringtheheat.

They also plan other “disruptive activities,” including during Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s expected campaign launch in Miami this month, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s planned European trip and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s upcoming visit to Iowa.

“The Kochs and their allies are creating what we see as a new political party — the Koch political party by big oil, of big oil and for big oil,” Lehane said Monday. He said the Steyer group’s mission will be to “disqualify” Koch-supported and “antiscience” candidates and to force them to explain what he called their increasing distance from American voters on the issue.

In the 2014 midterm elections, Steyer ranked as the nation’s largest Democratic donor and spent upward of $74 million supporting environmentally friendly candidates in Senate races in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and Colorado, and governor’s races in Maine, Florida and Pennsylvania. He came out a loser in more than half of those contests, but said he had no regrets.

Lehane said Steyer is prepared to spend “whatever it takes” to get his message out in a presidential election year, when contests will draw more voters and and involve more blue states than in the midterms. Young voters, who are expected to represent at least one-third of the 2016 electorate, will be a key to turning up the pressure on Republicans on the issue, he said.

Lehane argued that Americans — seeing headlines on issues like California’s extreme drought — have undergone opinion shifts on the issue, even since 2014.

Public concern

A study by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication released Monday showed that more than half of all Americans describe themselves as worried about climate change.

And a New York Times/Stanford University poll earlier this year showed an overwhelming majority of the American public — including half of Republicans — back government action to curb global warming.

That represented a marked shift from two years earlier, when polls showed a majority of Republicans said they believed climate change was a hoax. The poll showed that two-thirds of Americans said they are “more likely” to vote for a presidential candidate who addresses the issue.

Next year “is a crossroads election when it comes to climate,” Lehane said, adding that unless elected officials acknowledge the dangers and back solid policies to deal with it, “the climate change apocalypse will be unleashed.”

Carla Marinucci is The San Francisco Chronicle senior political writer. E-mail: cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com Twitter @cmarinucci