I am really loving the speed and preparation with which the Biden administration is staffing up the government and rooting out Trump appointees. It’s almost breathtaking in its efficiency and focus. This is going to make it much easier to implement President Biden’s agenda, including the aggressive “whole-of-government” climate ambitions he rolled out on Wednesday.
Philip Bump of the Washington Post says, “Biden’s administration has quickly and unquestionably become the one most focused on climate change in U.S. history,” and this is unquestionably true as even the left flank of the Democratic Party acknowledges.
It’s almost as if we helped shape the platform 😉 https://t.co/zXn3VcAbYw
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 27, 2021
It’s true that Biden isn’t going to ban fracking. But that’s in part because he’s looking to smooth the transition to a clean energy economy rather than exacerbate the disruption and dislocation it will cause. As part of that, Biden established a Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization which will not only look to clean up the environmental damage done in energy-producing communities, but turn their brownfields “into new hubs for the growth of our economy.”
The White House will also establish an interagency working group to help communities transition away from coal and other fossil fuels, the individuals said, headed by [White House National Climate Advisor Gina] McCarthy and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese.
Speaking to the U.S. Conference of Mayors this past weekend, McCarthy assured local officials from across the country that the administration would work to convince average Americans they will benefit from a transition to clean energy.
“People have been in pain long enough. We are not going to ask for sacrifice,” she said. “And if we fail to win the heart of middle America, we will lose.”
To get a sense of the potential here, it pays to look at the reaction from Gillette, Wyoming, Mayor Louise Carter-King. She governs a city that fancies itself the “Energy Capital of the Nation,” and they have a strong interest in the status quo. But Carter-King knows the dirty energy industry is on life support.
“I think we’ve found out it doesn’t really matter who is in the Oval Office,” she said in an interview, noting that while the Trump administration lightened regulations on coal and oil and gas companies, the energy industry that has helped this city thrive for decades still suffered job losses. “It’s just a free market, and that’s just all there is to it.”
She’s not thrilled to see the new emphasis on clean, renewable energy from the Biden administration, but she’s not taking an adversarial position.
While Wyoming remains one of the reddest states in the country — President Donald Trump won more than 70 percent of the vote in November — Carter-King said she welcomes Biden’s promises to help create new, solid jobs in places where the nation’s shift to cleaner forms of energy could mean lost jobs in the fossil fuel sector.
“We do want to work with the new administration on what we can do here. … Working together, we can get so much further than [having] some sort of standoff,” she said. “President Biden has promised to help communities like ours, so I’d like to hold him to that.”
The politics work for Biden, and they have to because his legislative agenda on climate has to go through Sen. Joe Manchin whose West Virginian constituents are as dependent on the old energy economy as the citizens of Wyoming. Manchin isn’t just a necessary vote in the 50-50 Senate, he’s the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. If Biden didn’t make it a priority to create replacement jobs, Manchin would insist. In fact, it’s Manchin’s recognition that the old economy cannot be saved that led him to team up with outgoing Energy Committee chairwoman Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to make sure the December coronavirus bill included “billions for solar, wind and battery storage.” Manchin knows that the people of his state will be left behind if he doesn’t use his powerful perch to get them new employment opportunities.
In this sense, Biden and Manchin’s interests mesh, and the same could be true for the mainly Republican senators who represent coal, oil and gas-producing states. More likely, they let partisan pressure prevent them from working constructively on climate legislation, but their constituents should benefit from Manchin’s efforts anyway.
It could be decades before Democrats are competitive in places like Gillette, Wyoming, but the changeover could come quicker than anyone thinks, precisely because Biden is taking their needs seriously and his policies will become their new lifeblood.
As for progressives, they’ll always find reasons to grumble and often without the slightest realism about what’s possible in Washington, DC. But they’re feeling positive about Biden’s appointments and his approach. We’ve rejoined the Paris Agreement, cancelled the XL Pipeline and paused all new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or offshore waters. There’s a new White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and National Climate Task Force. Environmental justice will now be “part of the mission of every agency” and federal agencies will “develop programs, policies, and activities to address the disproportionate health, environmental, economic, and climate impacts on disadvantaged communities.”
Maybe most importantly, Biden has reestablished the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and issued a presidential memorandum that “directs agencies to make evidence-based decisions guided by the best available science and data.”
All of this is in the service of Biden’s ambition to launch “a clean energy revolution that achieves a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and puts the United States on an irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050.”
So, nitpick if you must, but I think Biden’s habitual critics should be generous enough to admit they’re pleasantly surprised.
I have to say that Biden has thus far been a more left wing president than Obama (and I like Obama!). His cabinet, EOs, proposals are all well to the left of what was being proposed in Obama’s first term. It’s quite unfortunate that unlike Obama Biden has only 50 senators, but green new deal style policies have pretty good support amongst the population, and a lot can be done in reconciliation. This is something I expect to pass and I predict will become Biden’s biggest legacy, of his first term at least.
After the last 4 years I’m still just kind of in shock that we have a federal government that is trying to solve problems instead of ignoring or causing them.
I’m impressed so far with the scope of Biden’s agenda and the quality of his approach. Must say that he’s exceeding my expectations. Thought he would be mostly a place holder with maybe a good idea here or there. Instead, he’s showed up with a progressive but achievable and smart agenda. He’s finding ways to appeal to a broad range of interests.
Among other things, this is one of the advantages of regaining power after only four years and doing so with a new president who has executive experience (even if only as VP).
1) Biden knows where things are. Everything from the White House bathrooms and closets to the levers of power throughout the federal bureaucracy. To take just one example, Biden had oversight of the Recovery Act which gave him hands-on experience with hundreds of federal agencies, and what it takes to make them work. (Four years before moving into the White House Obama was a state senator who’d never run anything larger than a community organizing project.)
2) Continuity with the Obama administration means the same is true for dozens (soon to be hundreds) of Biden’s executive branch appointees. John Kerry was Secretary of State and Gina McCarthy was EPA administrator. It gives them a better shot at success than a team that’s primarily made up of legislators, business executives, and state government bureaucrats. (Nothing against any of them; it’s just that a team that’s mostly recruited from the latter institutions is going to take six months just to figure out their daily and weekly routines.)
The people he is appointing also want things to work. They also seem to be intellectually curious and perhaps even willing to learn. That said, the agencies have been hollowed out by Trump and his crew–and that goes across the board. A lot of rebuilding will be needed. They’ll want to hit the ground running, only to find that the road has been washed out. Or should I say, they know the road has been washed out in places, yet took the job anyway, aware of the challenges. I only hope they bring in a lot of good recruits and train them up.
“I think Biden’s habitual critics should be generous enough to admit they’re pleasantly surprised.”
So do I, but we all know it’s just going to be performative “I’m more progressive than you” posturing, and not a single one of the twatwaffles will ever admit being wrong. It’s how they roll.