After failing to promote new measures on climate change legislatively, today President Joe Biden announced some executive measures meant to address so-called global warming. Biden made the announcement on Wednesday during a trip to Brayton Point, a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts.
Biden vowed to use his “executive powers to combat [the] climate crisis,” and called climate change “a clear and present danger.”
After introducing climate-friendly Democrats in the audience, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and his climate envoy, former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the president blasted Republicans in Congress for not supporting his climate agenda.
“Since Congress is not acting as it should, and these guys here are, but we’re not getting any Republican votes, this is an emergency,” Biden said. “As president I’ll use my executive powers to combat [the] climate crisis in the absence of Congressional action.”
The president confused weather with climate, as he appeared to blame the current heat wave on climate change.
“Right now 100 million Americans are under heat alert,” Biden said. “Ninety communities across America set records for high temperatures just this year, including here in New England.”
Imagine that — hot weather in July.
“It’s astounding the damage that is being done,” Biden declared.
Biden is under increasing pressure to declare a “climate emergency,” which many believe will allow the president to act unilaterally on climate as opposed to having to move legislatively. Last week, Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) delivered a fatal blow to the president’s climate agenda when he said he could not support Biden’s climate-heavy domestic-policy package.
Biden called climate change an emergency, but stopped short of declaring it an emergency — at least so far.
The president announced a $2.3 billion program designed to assist communities in securing climate-friendly infrastructure.
“That’s why today I’m making the largest investment ever — 2.3 billion dollars to help communities across the country build infrastructure that’s designed to withstand the full range of disasters we’ve been seeing up to today,” Biden said. “Right now, there are millions of people suffering from extreme heat at home.”
In addition to announcing a $385 million giveaway to states to purchase air conditioners in homes and set up community cooling centers, he also touted $3.1 billion from a previous spending bill intended “to weatherize homes and make them more energy efficient.”
Biden also lauded Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, saying he “talks funny, but he’s a hell of a guy.”
The president said that Walsh is developing the “first-ever workplace standards for extreme heat.” Walsh is also apparently sending workplace inspectors from the Labor Department to make certain that those standards are being met, claiming that they’ve already completed over 500 such inspections across 43 states.
How can such inspections be completed when the workplace standards aren’t even completed yet?
Biden went on to discuss the Brayton Point power plant, which was shuttered in 2017, implicating it in his and others’ cancer.
“That’s why I, and so many damn other people I grew up [with,] have cancer. And why, for the longest time, Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”
Brayton Point will now serve as a conduit for offshore wind farms to get wind-generated power to the grid.
“Let’s clear the way for clean energy and connect these projects to the grid. I’ve directed my administration to clear every federal hurdle and streamline federal permitting that brings these clean energy projects on line right now and right away.”
There was little fresh meat on the bone for climate hysterics who have been starving for action in the wake of Joe Manchin’s intransigence on climate politics — at least as it suits his Democratic brethren — but more announcements regarding new executive action on climate change are expected in the coming weeks. And while Biden did not officially declare a climate emergency, the administration has not ruled out such a declaration.
