Lindsey Graham may paint some green onto the 2016 Republican presidential platform. Just don’t call him a moderate.

The South Carolina senator and potential GOP presidential contender is one of the few Republicans left on Capitol Hill to embrace the idea that humans play a sizable role in warming the planet. He spent months negotiating with Democrats on an attempt at major climate legislation during President Barack Obama’s first two years, and he’s received both praise and fundraising help from the Environmental Defense Fund, a centrist voice in the green movement.


That could offer a big contrast between Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who opened his own long-shot White House bid late last month with a message of unabashed conservatism. Cruz later said in an interview that climate activists — or as he called them, “global warming alarmists” — are “the equivalent of the flat-Earthers.”

But Graham, who bases his climate views as much on Scripture as on science, balked when asked whether the GOP needs a moderating voice — akin to the pro-science, pro-climate-action role that former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman played in the 2012 Republican primaries.

Graham’s label for himself is “solid conservative.”

“From a biblical point of view, we were counseled by God to be good stewards of the environment,” he said in an interview.

His question for the GOP on climate change is almost an existential quandary: What exactly does the party stand for?

“As we’re going to the 2016 cycle, what is the Republican Party’s plank when it comes to the environment?” Graham asked, echoing a speech he gave in late March at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think we would do ourselves some good if we come up with an environmental position that is good for business, that would make sense to the people who are concerned about the environment.”

But he also vows to stop Obama’s biggest climate regulation, an upcoming Environmental Protection Agency power plant rule that Graham calls the economic “nightmare” his own legislative efforts aimed to prevent. He says that “the global warming debate has gotten off track” largely because Democrats like Al Gore have created a “religion” around the climate issue.

“Democrats portray it as a religion,” he said. “I portray it as a problem.”

And unlike Huntsman, Graham isn’t about to lecture people who disagree with him or aren’t willing to join the cause publicly.

“I’m OK with the science behind climate change. But if you’re not, that’s OK with me,” Graham said. “But what is our position about the emissions? What’s our position about the Clean Air Act? What would we do as Republicans to ensure that the next generation enjoys a healthy environment, being good stewards of God’s green earth?”

If he runs for the White House, Graham’s balancing act would be to appeal to many of the same evangelical and conservative voters that Cruz is courting without shying away from his own climate views. He said he expects to decide on a presidential bid in May.

One Republican oil-industry titan, former Mitt Romney adviser Harold Hamm, said Graham may have a tough time explaining his past climate deal-making with former Democratic Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman. “People have a long memory in this industry, and certainly they can look way back,” Hamm said in an interview. “And so I think that’s going to give mixed signals.”

A spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, a group affiliated with industrialist billionaires Charles and David Koch, suggested that Graham serves mostly as an example of what Republican presidential hopefuls should avoid doing.

“I don’t think anyone is taking Lindsey Graham’s presidential bid too seriously,” AEA spokesman Chris Warren said. “And from our standpoint, other candidates would do well to stand in contrast to him on energy and environment issues at least as far as his record has shown.”

But former South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson, a close friend, said Graham’s attention to climate change and the environment is simply an example of his desire be a problem solver. He says it could play a positive role in the party, appealing to younger voters and forcing other Republican candidates to spell out their positions.

“There’s a whole wave of young people entering the political spectrum … and the environment matters,” Dawson said. (Dawson is supporting former Texas Gov. Rick Perry for president, a commitment he says he made before Graham grew serious about running.)

Current South Carolina GOP Chairman Matt Moore said Graham’s climate stance may help him in his native state’s early primary and might not hurt in New Hampshire, home of close Graham ally Sen. Kelly Ayotte. In January, Graham and Ayotte were among just five Republican senators to vote for a Democrat-backed amendment declaring that humans “significantly” contribute to climate change. Both later voted for similar language in a budget amendment from Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Particularly here in South Carolina, we have supported politicians who have led on the environment,” Moore said. But he deflected using the term moderate to describe the senator’s views. “By definition, conservatives believe in protecting the environment,” he said.

While the conventional wisdom holds that the right dominates the GOP primaries, Graham might need to appeal to other segments of the party if he wants to be a viable candidate.

“It’s a good strategy on his part,” conservative energy consultant Mike McKenna said. “It’s an area in which he can kind of highlight, ‘Hey, I’m the moderate here’ without actually saying, ‘I’m the moderate here.’ It distinguishes himself from the right side of the race.”

And some liberals are welcoming Graham to try.

“There’s an opportunity for a presidential candidate to appeal to the nearly 50 percent of Republicans who believe that we ought to act to address climate change,” said Daniel Weiss, senior vice president for campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters. “The vast majority of the potential Republican candidates are on record as climate-science deniers, thereby catering to a small but vocal part of the Republican electorate.”

Liberal Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), sponsor of the January climate amendment that Graham supported, joked that “I don’t want to get him in trouble by praising him.” But Schatz said Graham’s vote “was very encouraging, and I think it’s about time for real conservative Republican leadership on this.”

Some of Graham’s evolution on climate change may be at least partially tied to the influence of Christian Coalition of America President Roberta Combs and her daughter Michele, who is the coalition’s spokeswoman and co-founder of Young Conservatives for Energy Reform. “This is not a Democrat, this is not a liberal issue, this is a family issue,” Michele Combs has said regarding climate change and clean energy.

Graham wasn’t always so outspoken on the issue. In 2003, his first year in the Senate, he voted against a bill from Lieberman and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that is widely seen as the chamber’s first serious climate bill.

But since then, he has shown a pattern of departing from the reigning GOP orthodoxy on climate change. He supported a 2005 bill from McCain and Lieberman, an early sign of camaraderie for a Senate trio that Gen. David Petraeus would later dub the “Three Amigos.” But unlike McCain, Graham has stayed consistent in calling for action on climate change. In an October 2009 op-ed in The New York Times, he and Kerry called global warming “an urgent crisis facing the world” and promised to seek a bipartisan deal.

In 2009 and 2010, he worked with Kerry and Lieberman on legislation that would have created an economywide market system, similar to cap and trade, to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions. The talks fell apart in 2010, partly because the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico derailed prospects for Graham to lure other Republicans with language promoting energy production.

Not only doesn’t Graham distance himself from those efforts, but he says history has proven him right.

The purpose of the legislation was to “create an emissions control standard working with industry,” he said, adding that the bill would also have helped nuclear power and allowed expanded offshore drilling. “See, what people forget is that the oil companies and power companies were all supportive of this. This would have been a congressional standard that they could live with versus an EPA standard.”

Instead, the legislative attempt failed, leaving Obama’s EPA to deal with the problem through regulations such as its clampdown on the power industry.

“So the worst nightmare’s come true,” Graham said. “We’re now going to have an EPA regulation that’s going to drive up the power costs and hurt our economy. That’s what I was trying to avoid.”

He promises to “take the EPA regulation down.”

Graham compliments some of his potential Republican rivals, saying they could also contribute to the debate. “I think you need a solid conservative, like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush,” he said, notably leaving Cruz off the list. “People who are really good conservatives, fiscal and social conservatives, to lay out an environmental platform that can connect with people.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a darling of the GOP’s libertarian wing, has also “been good” on the issue, Graham said. “He’s showing some sensitivity.”

Dawson, the former South Carolina GOP chairman, said Graham can have an impact on the climate debate if he runs. “I think Republicans are going to appreciate him forcing that discussion.”

And if it doesn’t work? “The worst thing Lindsey Graham is at the end of this,” Dawson said, “is a very powerful United States senator.”