WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will travel to Massachusetts on Wednesday to promote his efforts to fight climate change, but will not issue an emergency declaration that would unlock federal resources to address the issue, according to a person familiar with the president plans.
Biden was under pressure to issue an emergency statement after Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., withdrew from negotiations on climate legislation. During his visit to Somerset, Massachusetts, Biden may announce other steps on climate change, but the White House has not released details.
The president is trying to signal to Democratic voters that he is aggressively fighting global warming at a time when some of his supporters have grown frustrated with the lack of progress. He vowed to go ahead on his own in the absence of action from Congress.
The person familiar with Biden’s intention to delay the emergency declaration spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the plans publicly. It was not clear whether the declaration of a state of emergency remains under review.
Declaring a climate emergency would be similar to the one issued by former President Donald Trump, who is promoting a wall along the southern border. That would allow Biden to shift spending toward accelerating renewable energy like wind and solar power and speeding the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. 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.
The focus on climate action comes amid a heatwave that has swept across Europe, with Britain reaching the hottest temperature ever recorded in a country ill-prepared for such extreme weather conditions.
The typically temperate nation was the latest to be hit by unusually hot and dry weather that sparked wildfires from Portugal to the Balkans and led to hundreds of heat-related deaths. Images of flames racing onto a French beach and sweltering Britons – even at the seaside – have heightened concerns about climate change.
The president vowed late last week to take strong executive action on climate after Manchin — who wields enormous influence over Biden’s legislative agenda because of a slim Democratic majority in the Senate — hit the brakes on negotiations over proposals for new environmental programs and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
One of the biggest supporters of fossil fuels in the Democratic caucus, Manchin blamed persistently high inflation for his reluctance to agree to another spending package. His resistance has angered other Democrats in Congress, who have stepped up pressure on Biden to act alone on climate.
The president “must get serious about climate — starting with declaring a climate emergency so we can take bold action NOW about the catastrophic effects climate chaos is having on our health, environment and economy,” Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., tweeted Tuesday.
Biden, who has served in the Senate for more than three decades, “has been riveted to the legislative process, thinking about his past as a senator,” Merkley said at a news conference Monday night. “Now he is released and must go.”
John Podesta, chairman of the board of the liberal Center for American Progress, said environmental leaders met with senior White House officials on Friday to discuss policy ideas. Some proposals include strengthening regulations on vehicle and power plant emissions, reinstating the ban on crude oil exports and suspending new leases for oil drilling on federal lands and waters.
“If he wants to fulfill his commitments to do everything he can to reduce emissions, he needs to address these critical regulatory issues that he faces,” said Podesta, a former climate adviser to President Barack Obama.
Ben King, an associate director at the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, said the United States is “not close” to meeting the ambitious emissions reduction goals set by Biden.
Biden escalated the goal of reducing the country’s emissions to at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030. Under current federal and state policies, the U.S. is on track to achieve a 24% to 35% reduction, according to Rhodium’s latest analysis to the group.
“In the absence of meaningful political action, we are a long way from achieving the goals that the United States has committed to under the Paris Agreement,” King said, referring to a 2015 global conference to address climate change.
Even as Democrats and environmental groups urged Biden to act alone, some legal scholars questioned whether an emergency declaration on climate change was warranted.
“Emergency powers are intended for events such as terrorist attacks, epidemics and natural disasters,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Freedom and National Security Program at NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice.
Such powers “are not designed to deal with persistent problems, no matter how severe. And they’re not meant to be an end-run around Congress,” Goitein wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post last year.
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