 | | People protested the use of fossil fuels outside the Capitol in Washington last month.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times |
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President Biden took office with a promise to treat the climate crisis with far more urgency than his predecessor. During the campaign, he released a $2 trillion plan calling for an emissions-free power sector by 2035 and for the United States to reach net-zero planet-warming emissions by 2050. But whether the U.S. meets those goals could depend on whether Democrats in Congress are able to unite around a big enough version of an infrastructure bill. |
To get a better sense of where Biden's climate agenda stands, I asked Coral Davenport, a climate reporter for The Times, to answer a few questions. |
Hi, Coral. President Biden took office with a $2 trillion climate plan, but his first big legislative pushes have focused elsewhere. What steps has he taken on climate so far? |
In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed a series of executive orders setting in motion a slew of federal policies on climate change. On his first day, he rejoined the United States to the Paris climate agreement, from which President Donald Trump had withdrawn, and canceled the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried heavily polluting oil from tar sands in Canada. He then directed federal agencies to begin the process of reinstating and strengthening Obama-era climate policies that Trump had rolled back. |
The White House has also begun what it calls an "all-of-government" approach — essentially directing every agency, from the Treasury to the Pentagon, to rapidly push policies focused on tackling climate change wherever they can. For example, it has ordered government financial officials to report the risk that climate change poses to federal assets and tax revenue. |
The administration has taken several steps to slow fossil fuel development and increase the development of renewable energy. Biden has suspended new leases to drill for oil and gas on public lands pending a review of the program, but has moved forward with steps that would open up the east and west coasts to the nation's first large-scale offshore wind farms. |
Democrats are separately crafting another bill, magnitudes larger than the first, that they plan to advance on a party-line vote. Biden wants that bill to include hundreds of billions of dollars to accelerate a national transition to electric vehicles, as well as a mandate that electric utilities generate a majority of their power from zero-carbon sources within the next decade. Both of those proposals would need support from every Democratic senator, which is far from guaranteed. |
Are you expecting Biden to announce additional climate actions in the near future? |
The administration is expected to announce in July or August that it will largely reinstate Obama-era regulations on pollution from vehicle tailpipes. That's a significant step — vehicles are the nation's largest source of climate-warming emissions — but the rules, which would probably go into effect next year, would last only through 2026. |
At the same time, the administration is expected to begin work on new rules that would go out to 2030 or 2032. If — and this is a big if — those rules are extremely tough and ambitious, they could force automakers to begin a rapid transition away from fossil-fuel powered cars and toward a near-term future in which the vast majority of cars sold in America are electric. But getting political support will be tough. Auto unions and automakers are wary of such a rapid, government-mandated shift. |
Similarly, while Congress reinstated the rule on methane pollution from new oil and gas wells, the Environmental Protection Agency is working on a new rule that would restrict such pollution from existing oil and gas wells — a step that would capture many of the most potent greenhouse gas leaks — and possibly shut down some oil and gas producers. |
How much of a dent would those actions make in meeting the 2035 and 2050 deadlines? |
If the final infrastructure package includes a robust clean electricity standard that would eventually force out the use of fossil fuels to power electric plants, and if it includes hundreds of billions of dollars for electric vehicle infrastructure and tax credits for purchasers of electric vehicles, that could rapidly reduce emissions from vehicles and power plants, the nation's top two sources of greenhouse pollution. |
It could also make it easier for Biden to gain support for going even further — if the federal government has already spent heavily on building electric vehicle infrastructure, it could ease the way politically for it to create tough standards essentially requiring an increase in electric vehicle sales. |
If that rule is enacted on top of a climate-centered infrastructure package, most experts say Biden could probably get most of the way toward his promised emissions cuts. |
How do climate activists feel about what the administration has done so far? |
Climate activists have been pleased with Biden's rhetoric but displeased that they haven't seen more concrete action. They fear that robust climate measures could be removed from the second infrastructure bill, which would probably leave them on the cutting room floor for the foreseeable future, as Republicans could gain majorities in Congress in the 2022 midterms. |
Activists have been pushing progressive lawmakers to tell the president "No climate, no deal" — essentially, that if the most ambitious climate initiatives get left out of the infrastructure package, they won't vote for it. |
Researchers said yesterday that the recent heat wave in the Pacific Northwest would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change, and the West is facing an early and potentially devastating fire season. Has the immediacy and visibility of these effects increased the sense of urgency within the administration? |
Biden has absolutely been using the links between climate change and extreme weather to push his agenda. Speaking yesterday in Illinois, he said: "In Illinois, farmers downstate are dealing with more frequent droughts. And two weeks ago, just south of here, you just had a nearly unprecedented tornado. We can't wait any longer to deal with the climate crisis. We see it with our own eyes, and it's time to act." |
In Michigan, pro-impeachment House Republicans face voters' wrath. |
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Representative Peter Meijer cites Gerald Ford as his inspiration these days, not because the former president held his House seat for 24 years or because his name is all over this city, but because in Ford, the freshman congressman sees virtues lost to his political party. |
Ford took control after a president resigned rather than be impeached for abusing his power in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of an election. |
"It was a period of turmoil," said Meijer, who was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol riot. Ford's greatest asset, he added, was "offering — this word is becoming too loaded of late — a sense of morals, moral leadership, a sense of value and centering decency and humility." |
"Sometimes when you're surrounded by cacophony, it helps to have someone sitting there who isn't adding another screaming voice onto the pile," Meijer added. |
Six months after the Capitol attack and 53 miles southeast of Grand Rapids, on John Parish's farm in the hamlet of Vermontville, Meijer's problems sat on folding chairs on the Fourth of July. They ate hot dogs, listened to bellicose speakers and espoused their own beliefs that reflected how, even at age 33, Meijer may represent the Republican Party's past more than its future. |
The stars of the "Festival of Truth" on Sunday were adding their screaming voices onto the pile, and the 100 or so West Michiganders in the audience were enthusiastically soaking it up. Many of them inhabited an alternative reality in which Trump was re-elected and their votes were stolen. |
"God is forgiving, and — I don't know — we're forgiving people," Geri Nichols, 79, of nearby Hastings, said as she spoke of her disappointment in Meijer. "But he did wrong. He didn't support our president like he should have." |
For all its political eccentricities, Michigan is not unique. Dozens of congressional candidates planning challenges next year are promoting Trump's false election claims. But Western Michigan does have one distinction: It is home to two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. |
The other one, Representative Fred Upton, finds himself in similar political straits to Meijer. Both will face multiple primary challengers next year who accuse them of disloyalty — or worse, treason — for holding Trump responsible for Jan. 6. |
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