Op-Ed: Joe Biden is Delivering on His Green Promises
In a Newsweek opinion piece, Michelle Deatrick, Chair of the DNC Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis, explains how President Biden has done more than any other president in history to increase safe renewable energy, address the climate crisis, and protect the environment.
“The climate crisis is not coming; it is here now. We see it around us every day: wildfires and droughts, stronger hurricanes, and flooding. The U.S. just went through our hottest winter on record. The crisis impacts everything, from our day-to-day lives to our health and food systems, to our economy and our national security. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris understand this and have made addressing the climate crisis a priority since Day 1 of their administration.”
“On his first day in office, in a direct rebuke to Trump and his disastrous environmental policies, Biden announced the United States would rejoin the Paris Agreement, an international pact signed by more than 190 countries committing to avert catastrophic levels of climate change. Biden followed that announcement with a pledge to cut our climate pollution by at least 50 percent by 2030, making the United States a global leader in the fight against the climate crisis.”
“With two monumental legislative achievements—the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act—Biden also centered the environment and addressing the climate crisis.”
“The president has also worked aggressively to reduce the impact of fossil fuels. Late last year, thanks in significant part to Biden's leadership, nearly 200 countries took the historic step of agreeing to a global pact to transition away from fossil fuels—a first in the nearly 30-year global effort to address the climate crisis. And in January, the Biden administration announced that it was pausing approval of export licenses for liquid natural gas, a particularly potent contributor to global heating. The move is a big win for vulnerable communities on the front lines of the climate crisis and is a major step toward ending our reliance on dirty fossil fuels.”
“Has Biden done everything the environmental community has wanted? No. Is there more he can and should do to address the existential threat from the climate crisis? Absolutely yes. And the president would probably be the first person to say so. But as the campaign heats up, Biden has a tremendous record of accomplishment on environmental issues that he—and all Democrats—can and should run on.”
