A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | |
|---|---|
 Kennedy in 2023 | |
| Born | Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. January 17, 1954 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | |
| Occupations |
|
| Notable work |
|
| Political party | Independent |
| Other political affiliations | Democratic (until 2023) |
| Spouses | Emily Black
(m. 1982; div. 1994) |
| Children | 6 |
| Parents | |
| Family | Kennedy family |
| Website | kennedy24 |
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954), also known by his initials RFK Jr., is an American politician, environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and conspiracy theorist. He is the chairman and founder of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group that is a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation,[1][2] and an independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election. A member of the Kennedy family, he is a son of U.S. attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy, and nephew of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and senator Ted Kennedy.
Kennedy began his career as an assistant district attorney in New York City. In the mid-1980s, he joined two nonprofits focused on environmental protection: Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).[3] His work at Riverkeeper set long-term environmental legal standards. At both organizations, he won legal battles against large corporate polluters. He became an adjunct professor of environmental law at Pace University School of Law in 1986.[4] In 1987, he founded Pace's Environmental Litigation Clinic, where he held the post of supervising attorney and co-director until 2017.[5] He founded the nonprofit environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999, serving as the president of its board.
Since 2005, Kennedy has promoted anti-vaccine misinformation[6] and public health conspiracy theories,[7] including the scientifically disproven claim of a causal link between vaccines and autism.[8] Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has emerged as a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in the United States.[9][1] Many of his often disproved public health claims have targeted such prominent figures as Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, and Joe Biden. He has written books including The Real Anthony Fauci (2021) and A Letter to Liberals (2022).
Early life and education
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Kennedy was born at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., on January 17, 1954. He is the third of eleven children of senator and U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel. He is a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy.[10]
Kennedy was raised at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and at Hickory Hill, the family estate in McLean, Virginia.[11][12][13] He was nine years old when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963, and 14 when his father was assassinated while running for president in 1968.[14]
Kennedy learned of his father's shooting while at Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit boarding school in North Bethesda, Maryland.[15] A few hours later, he flew to Los Angeles on Vice President Hubert Humphrey's plane, along with his older siblings, Kathleen and Joe. He was with his father when he died. Kennedy was a pallbearer at his father's funeral, where he spoke and read excerpts from his father's speeches at the mass commemorating his death at Arlington National Cemetery.[16][17]
After his father's death, Kennedy struggled with drug abuse, which led to his arrest in Barnstable, Massachusetts for marijuana possession at age 16,[18][19] and his expulsion from two boarding schools: Millbrook and Pomfret.[20][21] In June 1972, he graduated from the Palfrey Street School, a day school outside Boston.[22] While attending Palfrey, Kennedy lived with a surrogate family at a farmhouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[23]
Kennedy continued his education at Harvard University, graduating in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in American history and literature. He then studied at the London School of Economics before earning a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982,[24] and a Master of Laws from Pace University in 1987.[25]
Career
Conviction for heroin possession
In 1982, Kennedy was sworn in as an assistant district attorney for Manhattan.[2] After failing the New York bar exam, he resigned in July 1983.[26] That September, he was charged with heroin possession in Rapid City, South Dakota.[26] He pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of possession of heroin in February 1984, whereupon he was sentenced to two years' probation and community service. He originally faced a potential sentence of two years in prison.[27][28] After his arrest, he entered a drug treatment center. To satisfy one of the conditions of his probation, Kennedy worked as a volunteer for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and was required to attend regular drug-rehabilitation sessions. His probation ended a year early.[29]
Riverkeeper
In 1984, Kennedy began volunteering at The Hudson River Fisherman's Association, renamed Riverkeeper in 1986 after a patrol boat it had built with settlement money from legal victories preceding Kennedy's arrival.[30][31] The association's office was in a farmhouse near the Natural Resources Defense Council, where Kennedy was doing the community service mandated by his sentence for heroin possession.[30] After he was admitted to the New York bar in 1985, Riverkeeper hired him as senior attorney.[30][32][29] Kennedy litigated and supervised environmental enforcement lawsuits on the east coast estuaries on behalf of Hudson Riverkeeper and the Long Island Soundkeeper,[33] where he was also a board member. Long Island Soundkeeper sued several municipalities and cities along the Connecticut and New York coastlines.[34] On the Hudson, Kennedy sued municipalities and industries, including General Electric, to stop discharging pollution and clean up legacy contamination.[35] His work at Riverkeeper set long-term environmental legal standards.[35]
In 1995, Kennedy advocated for repeal of legislation during the 104th Congress that he considered unfriendly to the environment.[36] In 1997, he worked with John Cronin to write The Riverkeepers, a history of the early Riverkeepers and a primer for the Waterkeeper movement.[32]
In 2000, a majority of Riverkeeper's board sided with Kennedy when he insisted on rehiring William Wegner, a wildlife lecturer and falcon trainer[37][30] whom the organization's founder and president, Robert H. Boyle, had fired six months earlier after learning that Wegner had been convicted in 1995 for tax fraud, perjury, and conspiracy to violate wildlife protection laws.[30][38] Wegner had recruited and led a team of at least 10 who smuggled cockatoo eggs, including species considered endangered by Australia, from Australia to the U.S. over a period of eight years.[37][30] He served 3.5 years of a five-year sentence and was hired by Kennedy a few months after his release from prison.[30] After the board's decision, Boyle, eight of the 22 members of the board, and Riverkeeper's treasurer resigned, saying it was not right for an environmental organization to hire someone convicted of environmental crimes and that it would hurt the organization's fundraising.[30][38]
Kennedy resigned from Riverkeeper in 2017, writing in his resignation letter that he had co-founded the organization.[30][39]
Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic
In 1987, Kennedy founded the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University School of Law, where for three decades he was the clinic's supervising attorney and co-director and Clinical Professor of Law.[40] Kennedy obtained a special order from the New York State Court of Appeals that permitted his 10 clinic students—second- and third-year law students—to practice law and try cases against Hudson River polluters in state and federal court, under the supervision of Kennedy and his co-director, Professor Karl Coplan. The clinic's full-time clients are Riverkeeper and Long Island Soundkeeper.[41]
The clinic has sued governments and companies for polluting Long Island Sound and the Hudson River and its tributaries.[42] It argued cases to expand citizen access to the shoreline and won hundreds of settlements for the Hudson Riverkeeper.[43] Kennedy and his students also sued dozens of municipal wastewater treatment plants to force compliance with the Clean Water Act.[41] In 2010, a Pace lawsuit forced ExxonMobil to clean up tens of millions of gallons of oil from legacy refinery spills in Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, New York.[44]
On April 11, 2001, Men's Journal gave Kennedy its "Heroes" Award for creating the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic.[45] Kennedy and the clinic received other awards for successful legal work cleaning up the environment.[46] The Pace Clinic became a model for similar environmental law clinics throughout the country, including Rutgers,[47] Golden Gate, UCLA,[48] Widener,[49] and Boalt Hall at Berkeley.[50]
Waterkeeper Alliance
In June 1999, as Riverkeeper's success on the Hudson began inspiring the creation of Waterkeepers across North America, Kennedy and a few dozen Riverkeepers gathered in Southampton, Long Island, to found the Waterkeeper Alliance, which is now the umbrella group for the 344 licensed Waterkeeper programs[51] located in 44 countries.[52] As President of the Alliance, Kennedy oversees its legal, membership, policy and fundraising programs. The Alliance states that it is dedicated to promoting "swimmable, fishable, drinkable waterways, worldwide",[53] and is also a clearinghouse, approving new Keeper programs and licensing use of the trademarked "Waterkeeper", "Riverkeeper", "Soundkeeper", "Lakekeeper", "Baykeeper", "Bayoukeeper", "Canalkeeper", "Coastkeeper", etc. names.[54]
Kennedy and his environmental work have been the focus of several films including The Waterkeepers (2000),[55] directed by Les Guthman. In 2008, he appeared in the IMAX documentary film Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, riding the Grand Canyon in a wooden dory with his daughter Kick and anthropologist Wade Davis.[56]
Kennedy resigned from Waterkeeper Alliance presidency in November 2020.[57]
New York City Watershed Agreement
Beginning in 1991, Kennedy represented environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers in a series of lawsuits against New York City and upstate watershed polluters. Kennedy authored a series of articles and reports[58][59][60][61] alleging that New York State was abdicating its responsibility to protect the water repository and supply. In 1996, he helped orchestrate the $1.2 billion New York City Watershed Agreement, which New York magazine recognized in its cover story, "The Kennedy Who Matters".[62] This agreement, which Kennedy negotiated on behalf of environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers, is regarded as an international model in stakeholder consensus negotiations and sustainable development.[63]
Kennedy & Madonna LLP
In 2000, Kennedy and environmental lawyer Kevin Madonna founded the environmental law firm Kennedy & Madonna, LLP, to represent private plaintiffs against polluters.[64] The firm litigates environmental contamination cases on behalf of individuals, non-profit organizations, school districts, public water suppliers, Indian tribes, municipalities and states. In 2001, Kennedy & Madonna organized a team of prestigious plaintiff law firms to challenge pollution from industrial pork and poultry production.[65] In 2004, the firm was part of a legal team that secured a $70 million settlement for property owners in Pensacola, Florida whose properties were contaminated by chemicals from an adjacent Superfund site.[66]
Kennedy & Madonna was profiled in the 2010 HBO documentary Mann v. Ford,[67] which chronicles four years of litigation by the firm on behalf of the Ramapough Mountain Indians against the Ford Motor Company for dumping toxic waste on tribal lands in northern New Jersey.[68] In addition to a monetary settlement for the tribe, the lawsuit contributed to the community's land being re-listed on the federal Superfund list, the first time that a de-listed site was re-listed.[69]
In 2007, Kennedy was one of three finalists nominated as "Trial Lawyer of the Year" by Public Justice for his role in the $396 million jury verdict against DuPont for contamination from its Spelter, West Virginia zinc plant.[70] In 2017, the firm was part of the trial team that secured a $670 million settlement on behalf of over 3,000 residents from Ohio and West Virginia whose drinking water was contaminated by the toxic chemical perfluorooctanoic acid, which DuPont released into the environment in Parkersburg, West Virginia.[71]
Morgan & Morgan
In 2016, Kennedy became counsel to the Morgan & Morgan law firm.[72] The partnership arose from the two firms' successful collaboration on the case against SoCalGas Company following the Aliso Canyon gas leak in California.[73] In 2017, Kennedy and his partners sued Monsanto in federal court in San Francisco, on behalf of plaintiffs seeking to recover damages for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, that, the plaintiffs allege, were a result of exposure to Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup. Kennedy and his team also filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for failing to warn consumers about the dangers allegedly posed by exposure to Roundup.[74]
In September 2018, Kennedy and his partners filed a class-action lawsuit against Columbia Gas of Massachusetts alleging negligence following gas explosions in three towns north of Boston. Of Columbia Gas, Kennedy said "as they build new miles of pipe, the same company is ignoring its existing infrastructure, which we now know is eroding and is dilapidated".[75]
Renewable energy
In 1999, Kennedy, Chris Bartle and John Hoving created a bottled-water company, Keeper Springs, which donated all of its profits to Waterkeeper Alliance.[76]
Kennedy was a venture partner and senior advisor at VantagePoint Capital Partners, one of the world's largest cleantech venture capital firms. Among other activities, VantagePoint was the original and largest pre-IPO institutional investor in Tesla. VantagePoint also backed BrightSource Energy and Solazyme, amongst others. Kennedy is a board member and counselor to several of Vantage Point's portfolio companies in the water and energy space, including Ostara, a Vancouver-based company that markets the technology to remove phosphorus and other excessive nutrients from wastewater, transforming otherwise pollution directly into high-grade fertilizer.[77] He is also a senior advisor to Starwood Energy Group and has played a key role in a number of the firm's investments.[78]
He is on the board of Vionx, a Massachusetts-based utility scale vanadium flow battery systems manufacturer. On October 5, 2017, Vionx, National Grid and the U.S. Department of Energy completed the installation of advanced flow batteries at Holy Name High School in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts. The collaboration also includes Siemens and the United Technologies Research Center and constitutes one of the largest energy storage facilities in Massachusetts.[79]
Kennedy is a Partner in ColorZen, which offers a turnkey cotton fiber pre-treatment solution that reduces water usage and toxic discharges in the cotton dyeing process.[80]
Kennedy was a co-owner and Director of the smart grid company Utility Integration Solutions (UISol),[81] which was acquired by Alstom. He is presently a co-owner and Director of GridBright, the market-leading grid management specialist.[82]
In October 2011, Kennedy co-founded EcoWatch, an environmental news site. He resigned from its board of directors in January 2018.[83]
Minority and poor communities
In his first case as an environmental attorney, Kennedy represented the NAACP in a lawsuit against a proposal to build a garbage transfer station in a minority neighborhood in Ossining, New York.[84]
In 1987, he successfully sued Westchester County, New York, to reopen the Croton Point Park, which was heavily used primarily by poor and minority communities from the Bronx.[85] He then forced the reopening of the Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, which New York City had closed to the public and converted to a police firing range.[32]
Kennedy has argued that poor communities shoulder the disproportionate burden of environmental pollution.[86] Speaking at the 2016 South by Southwest environment conference in Austin, Texas, he said, "Polluters always choose the soft target of poverty", noting that Chicago's south side has the highest concentration of toxic waste dumps in America.[87] Furthermore, he added that 80 percent of "uncontrolled toxic waste dumps" can be found in black neighborhoods, with the largest site in the United States being in Emelle, Alabama, which is 90 percent black.[88]
International and indigenous rights
Starting in 1985, Kennedy helped develop the Natural Resources Defense Council's international program for environmental, energy, and human rights, traveling to Canada and Latin America to assist indigenous tribes in protecting their homelands and opposing large-scale energy and extractive projects in remote wilderness areas.[89]
In 1990, Kennedy assisted indigenous Pehuenches in Chile in a partially successful campaign to stop the construction of a series of dams on Chile's iconic Biobío River. That campaign derailed all but one of the proposed dams.[90] Beginning in 1992, he assisted the Cree Indians of northern Quebec in their campaign against Hydro-Québec to halt construction of some 600 proposed dams on eleven rivers in James Bay.[91]
In 1993, Kennedy and NRDC, working with the indigenous rights organization Cultural Survival, clashed with other American environmental groups in a dispute about the rights of Indians to govern their own lands in the Oriente region of Ecuador.[92] Kennedy represented the CONFENIAE, a confederation of Indian peoples, in negotiation with the American oil company Conoco to limit oil development in Ecuadorian Amazon and, at the same time, obtain benefits from resource extraction for Amazonian tribes.[92] Kennedy was a vocal critic of Texaco for its previous record for polluting the Ecuadoran Amazon.[93]
From 1993 to 1999, Kennedy worked with five Vancouver Island Indian tribes in their campaign to end industrial logging by MacMillan Bloedel in Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia.[94]
In 1996, Kennedy met with Cuban President Fidel Castro to persuade the leader to halt his plans to construct a nuclear power plant at Juraguá.[95] During a lengthy latenight encounter, Castro reminisced about Kennedy's father and uncle, speculating that U.S. relations with Cuba would have been far better had President Kennedy not been assassinated.[96]
Between 1996 and 2000, Kennedy and NRDC helped Mexican commercial fishermen to halt Mitsubishi's proposal to build a salt facility in the Laguna San Ignacio, a known area in Baja where gray whales bred, and nursed their calves.[97] Kennedy wrote in opposition to the project, and took the campaign to Japan, meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.[98]
In 2000, he assisted local environmental activists to stop proposals by Chaffin Light, a real estate developer, and U.S. engineering giant Bechtel from building a large hotel and resort development that, Kennedy argued, threatened coral reefs and public beaches used by local Bahamians, at Clifton Bay, New Providence Island.[99]
Kennedy was one of the early editors of Indian Country Today, North America's largest Native American newspaper.[100] He helped lead the opposition to the damming of the Futaleufú River in the Patagonia region of Chile.[101] In 2016, citing the pressure precipitated by the Futaleufú Riverkeeper's campaign against the dams, the Spanish power company, Endesa, which owned the right to dam the river, reversed its decision and relinquished all claims to the Futaleufú.[102]
Military and Vieques
Kennedy has been a critic of environmental damage by the U.S. military.[103][104]
In a 2001 article, Kennedy described how he sued the U.S. Navy on behalf of fishermen and residents of Vieques, an island of Puerto Rico, to stop weapons testing, bombing, and other military exercises. Kennedy argued that the activities were unnecessary, and that the Navy had illegally destroyed several endangered species, polluted the island's waters, harmed the residents' health, and damaged its economy.[105] He was arrested for trespassing at Camp Garcia Vieques, the U.S. Navy training facility, where he and others were protesting the use of a section of the island for training. Kennedy served 30 days in a maximum security prison in Puerto Rico.[106] The trespassing incident forced the suspension of live-fire exercises for almost three hours.[107] The lawsuits and protests by Kennedy, and hundreds of Puerto Ricans who were also imprisoned, eventually forced the termination of naval bombing in Vieques by the Bush administration.[108]
In a 2003 article for the Chicago Tribune, Kennedy said the U.S. federal government was "America's biggest polluter" and the U.S. Department of Defense as the worst offender. Citing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he said, "unexploded ordnance waste can be found on 16,000 military ranges...and more than half may contain biological or chemical weapons".[109]
Factory farms
For almost twenty years, Kennedy and his Waterkeepers waged a legal and public relations battle against pollution by factory farms. In the 1990s, he rallied opposition to factory farms among small independent farmers, convened a series of "National Summits" on factory meat products, and conducted press conference whistle stop tours across North Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and in Washington DC. Beginning in 2000, Kennedy sued factory farms in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Iowa.[110] He wrote articles on the subject, arguing that factory farms produce lower-quality, less healthy food, and are harmful to independent family farmers by poisoning their air and water, reducing their property values, and using extensive state and federal subsidies to impose unfair competition against smaller farmers.[111]
In 1995, Premier Ralph Klein of Alberta declared Kennedy persona non grata in the province due to Kennedy's activism against Alberta's large-scale hog production facilities.[112] In 2002, Smithfield Foods filed a lawsuit against Kennedy in Poland, under a Polish law that makes criticizing a corporation illegal, after Kennedy denounced the company in a debate with Smithfield's Polish director before the Polish parliament.[110]
Oil, gas, and pipelines
Kennedy has advocated for a global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.[113][114] He has been particularly critical of the oil industry. In one of his first environmental cases, Kennedy filed a lawsuit against Mobil Oil for polluting the Hudson.[32]
Kennedy helped lead the battle against fracking in New York State.[115] He had been an early supporter of natural gas as viable bridge fuel to renewables, and a cleaner alternative to coal.[116] However, he said he turned against this controversial extraction method after investigating its cost to public health, climate and road infrastructure.[117] As a member of Governor Andrew Cuomo's fracking commission, Kennedy helped engineer the Governor's 2013 ban on fracking in New York State.[118]
Kennedy mounted a national effort against the construction of liquefied natural gas facilities.[119] Waterkeepers maintains a national watch that documents numerous crude oil spills annually.
In 2013, Kennedy assisted the Chipewyan First Nation and the Beaver Lake Cree fighting to protect their land from tar sands production.[120] In February 2013, while protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline Kennedy, along with his son, Conor, was arrested for blocking a thoroughfare in front of the White House during a protest.[121] In August 2016, Kennedy and Waterkeeper participated in protests to block the extension of the Dakota Access pipeline across the Sioux Indian Standing Rock Reservation's water supply.[122]
Kennedy has maintained that the oil industry remains competitive against renewables and electric cars only due to massive direct and indirect subsidies and political interventions on behalf of the oil industry. In a June 2017 interview on EnviroNews, Kennedy said about the oil industry, "That's what their strategy is: build as many miles of pipeline as possible. And what the industry is trying to do is to increase that level of infrastructure investment so our country won't be able to walk away from it.[123]
Coal
Under Kennedy's leadership, Waterkeeper launched its "Clean Coal is a Deadly Lie"[124] campaign in 2001, bringing dozens of lawsuits targeting mining practices, which include mountaintop removal,[125] slurry pond construction, and targeting mercury emissions and coal ash piles by coal-burning utilities.[126] Kennedy's Waterkeeper alliance has also been leading the fight against coal export, including from terminals in the Pacific Northwest.[127]
Kennedy has promoted replacing coal energy with renewable energy, which, he argues, would thereby reduce costs and greenhouse gases while improving air and water quality, the health of the citizens, and the number and quality of jobs.[128] In June 2011, film producer Bill Haney televised his award-winning film The Last Mountain, co-written by Haney and Peter Rhodes, depicting Kennedy's fight to stop Appalachian mountaintop removal mining.[129]
Nuclear power
Kennedy has been an opponent of conventional nuclear power, arguing that it is unsafe and not economically competitive.[130][131] In June 1981, he spoke at an anti-nuclear rally at the Hollywood Bowl with musicians Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt, and Jackson Browne.[132]
While working with Riverkeeper, he spearheaded a 34-year battle to close the Indian Point nuclear power plant.[133] Kennedy was featured in a 2004 documentary about the plant, Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable, directed by his sister, documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy.[134]
In 2017 Kennedy argued that the electricity Indian Point provided could be fully replaced by renewable energy.[133] In 2022, after the plant's closure, carbon emissions from electricity generation in New York state increased by 37%, compared to 2019, before the start of the closure.[135][136]
Hydro
In 1991, Kennedy helped lead a campaign to block Hydro-Québec from building the James Bay Hydro-project, a massive dam project in northern Quebec.[137]
His campaigns helped block dams on Chile's Biobío River in 1990[138] and its Futaleufú River in 2016. In 2002, he mounted what was ultimately an unsuccessful battle against building a dam on Belize's Macal River. Kennedy termed the Chalillo Dam a boondoggle and brought a high-profile legal challenge against Fortis Inc., a Canadian power company and the monopoly owner of Belize's electric utility.[139] In a 3–2 ruling in 2003, the Privy Council of the United Kingdom upheld the Belizean government's decision to permit dam construction.[139][140][141]
In 2004, Kennedy met with provincial officials and brought foreign media and political visitors to Canada to protest the building of hydroelectric dams on Quebec's Magpie River.[142] Hydro-Québec dropped plans for the dam in 2017.[143]
In November 2017, the Spanish hydroelectric syndicate Endesa decided to abandon HydroAysen, a massive project to construct dams on dozens of Patagonia's rivers accompanied by thousands of miles of roads, power lines and other infrastructure. Endesa returned its water rights to the Chilean government. The Chilean press credits advocacy by Kennedy and Riverkeeper as critical factors in the company's decision.[144]
Cape Wind
In 2005, Kennedy clashed with national environmental groups over his opposition to the Cape Wind Project, a proposed offshore wind farm off of the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in Nantucket Sound. Taking the side of Cape Cod's commercial fishing industry, Kennedy argued that the project was a costly boondoggle. This position angered some environmentalists, and brought Kennedy criticism by commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and John Stossel, the latter of whom called him a hypocrite.[145][better source needed] Kennedy argued in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, "Vermont wants to take its nuclear plant off line and replace it with clean, green power from Hydro-Québec—power available to Massachusetts utilities—at a cost of six cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). Cape Wind electricity, by a conservative estimate and based on figures they filed with the state, comes in at 25 cents per kwh."[146]
Political views
Kennedy's political rhetoric often uses conspiracy theories.[147][148][149]
Economic inequality
Kennedy expressed skepticism about the COVID-19 pandemic, contending that it served to benefit billionaires; according to Kennedy, the pandemic resulted in a "$4.4 trillion shift in wealth from the American middle class to this new oligarchy that we created—500 new billionaires with the lockdowns, and the billionaires that we already had increased their wealth by 30%". Kennedy has also said that the American government is dominated by corporate power; he said the Environmental Protection Agency was run by the "oil industry, the coal industry and the pesticide industry", and described the Food and Drug Administration as overly dominated by "Big Pharma".[150]
Kennedy has stated his belief that "systematic" erosion of the middle class is taking place, remarking in a 2023 interview with UnHerd that American politicians have "been systematically hollowing out the American middle class and printing money to make billionaires richer". He said that the financial industry and the military–industrial complex are funded at the expense of the American middle class.[150] Kennedy sees a "vibrant middle class" as the economy's backbone and said that the economy has deteriorated because the middle class has become poorer.[151]
In an interview with Andrew Serwer, Kennedy remarked that the gap between rich and poor in the U.S. had become too great and said, "the very wealthy people should pay more taxes and corporations". He also expressed his support for Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax plan, which would impose an annual tax of 2% on every dollar of a household's net worth over $50 million and 6% on every dollar of net worth over $1 billion.[152]
Foreign affairs and military intervention
Kennedy is critical of the United States' alliances with dictatorships like Saudi Arabia. He criticized the Saudi-led intervention in the Yemeni civil war, calling it a "genocide against the Iranian backed Houthi tribe."[153] Kennedy is a supporter of Israel. In December 2023, he had a heated exchange with Breaking Points host Krystal Ball, in what Rabbi Shmuley Boteach called "the single greatest defense of Israel on videos since the start of the" 2023 Israel–Hamas war.[154]
An opponent of the military industry and foreign interventions, Kennedy was critical of the Iraq War as well as American support for Ukraine against Russia's invasion of the country. He condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine,[155] but called the Russo-Ukrainian War "a U.S. war against Russia" and said the war's goal was to "sacrifice the flower of Ukrainian youth in an abattoir of death and destruction for the geopolitical ambition of the neocons".[150] He called for a peace agreement in Ukraine based on the Minsk Accords; in his view, the Donbas region should remain in Ukraine but also be given territorial autonomy and placed under the jurisdiction of United Nations peacekeeping forces, while Aegis missile systems should be removed from Eastern Europe.[156]
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