SOMERSET, Mass. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced modest new steps to fight climate change and promised more robust action to come, saying, “This is an emergency and I’m going to look at it that way.”
But the president stopped short of declaring a formal climate emergency that Democrats and environmental groups had sought after an influential Democratic senator dashed hopes for sweeping legislation to tackle global warming. Biden hinted that such a step could be reached.
“Let me be clear: climate change is an emergency,” Biden said. He vowed to use his power as president “to translate these words into formal, official government action through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders, and regulatory powers that the president possesses.”
On climate change, he added: “I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
Biden made his pledge at a former coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts. The former Brayton Point power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, is being converted to offshore wind power generation, and Biden chose it as an embodiment of the clean energy transition he sought but struggled to make in the first 18 months of his presidency.
The executive actions announced Wednesday will support the domestic offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Mexico and the Southeast, as well as spend $2.3 billion to help communities cope with high temperatures through programs administered by the Federal Environmental Management Agency. emergencies, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies.
The trip comes as historic temperatures scorch Europe and the United States. Forest fires are raging in Spain and France, and Britain on Tuesday broke its record for the hottest temperature ever recorded. At least 100 million Americans will face heat warnings over the next few days as cities around the US sweat through more intense and longer-lasting heat waves that scientists blame on global warming.
Calls for a national emergency to address the climate crisis are growing among activists and Democratic lawmakers after Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., last week scuttled negotiations on the long-delayed legislative package.
Biden said Wednesday that the option remains under consideration. “I understand all my powers,” he told reporters after returning to Washington. “Unless Congress acts in the meantime, I can do more” on climate, he said. “Because not enough is being done now.”
Biden said he had been told some of his climate legislative proposals remained “in the works,” but he acknowledged he had not spoken to Manchin.
Gina McCarthy, Biden’s climate adviser, said Biden is not “afraid” to treat climate as an emergency. “The president wants to make sure that we get it right, that we put it out there and that we have the time we need to craft it,” she told reporters on Air Force One.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who attended Wednesday’s event, said he was “confident that the president is ultimately willing to do whatever it takes to deal with this crisis.”
Environmental groups were less hopeful. “The world is burning from California to Croatia, and right now Biden is fighting the fire with a trickle of a garden hose,” said Jean Su, program director for energy justice at the Center for Biological Diversity.
A climate emergency declaration would allow Biden to redirect federal resources to bolster renewable energy programs that would help accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels like coal and oil. The declaration could also be used as a legal basis to block oil and gas drilling or other projects, although such actions are likely to be challenged in court by energy companies or Republican-led states.
Such a declaration would be similar to one issued by Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump, who declared a national emergency to build a wall along the southern border when lawmakers refused to appropriate money for the effort. A federal appeals court later ruled that Trump’s action was illegal.
Some legal scholars said an emergency climate order could meet a similar fate. The Supreme Court last month limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming.
Declaring a climate emergency “is a way to bypass Congress and Joe Manchin in particular. That’s not what emergency powers are about,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice.
Last week, Biden promised significant executive action on climate after months of discussions between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stalled. The West Virginia senator cited stubbornly high inflation as a reason for his hesitation, even though he has long championed energy interests in his coal- and gas-producing state.
For now, Manchin said he would agree to only a limited legislative deal on health care and prescription drugs. The White House has indicated that it wants Congress to pass this deal and that Biden will tackle the climate problem alone.
Biden visited the dusty grounds of the former Brayton Point Power Plant, which closed in 2017 after burning coal for more than five decades. The plant will now produce submarine transmission cables to carry energy generated by offshore wind to the electricity grid.
Several dozen people listened in the blazing sun as Biden spoke, including McCarthy, members of Congress and Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry, a former senator from Massachusetts.
A new report says the U.S. and other major carbon-polluting nations are failing to deliver on promises to fight climate change. Among the top 10 carbon emitters, only the European Union has adopted policies close to or in line with international targets to limit warming to just a few more tenths of a degree Celsius, scientists and experts say.
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The Daily reported from Washington.
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