Biden is under pressure to declare an emergency after Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., withdrew from negotiations on climate legislation. During his visit to Somerset, Mass., Biden could 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 tackling global warming at a time when some of his supporters have despaired of a lack of progress. He has vowed to go it alone in the absence of congressional action. The person familiar with Biden’s intention to hold off on making an emergency declaration spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly. It was not clear whether the emergency declaration is still being considered. The declaration of a climate emergency would be similar to the one issued by former President Donald Trump, boosting the construction of a wall on the southern border. It would allow Biden to redirect spending to accelerate renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and accelerate the country’s transition away from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. The statement could also be used as a legal basis to block oil and gas drilling or other projects, though such actions would likely be challenged in court by energy companies or Republican-led states. The focus on climate action comes amid a heat wave that has blackened parts of Europe, with Britain hitting its hottest temperature ever recorded in a country ill-prepared for such extreme weather. The normally temperate nation was just the latest to be battered by unusually hot, dry weather that has sparked fires from Portugal to the Balkans and led to hundreds of heat-related deaths. Images of flames racing towards a French beach and Britons drowning — even on the beach — have sparked concerns at home about climate change. The president pledged late last week to take strong executive action on climate after Manchin — who has wielded enormous influence over Biden’s legislative agenda because of the 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 proponents of fossil fuels within the Democratic caucus, Manchin has blamed persistently high inflation for his reluctance to pursue another spending package. His resistance has angered other congressional Democrats who have stepped up pressure on Biden to act alone on climate. “I think given the global crisis we’re facing, given the inability of Congress to address this existential threat, I think the White House needs to use all the resources and tools that it can,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. I-Vt. On a climate emergency, “this is something I’ve been asking for, for a long time.” Biden, who served in the Senate for more than three decades, “is chained to the legislative process, thinking about his past as a senator,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said at a news conference Monday night. “Now it’s solved and it has to 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 included strengthening regulations on vehicle emissions and power plants, reinstating a ban on crude oil exports and suspending new leases for oil drilling on federal lands and waters. “If he wants to keep his commitments to do everything he can to reduce emissions, he needs to pay attention to these critical regulatory issues that he faces,” said Podesta, a former climate adviser to President Barack Obama. Ben King, associate director at the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, said the United States is “nowhere close” to meeting Biden’s ambitious emissions reduction goals. Biden scaled up the goal of reducing the nation’s emissions to at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Under current federal and state policies, the U.S. is on track to reach a 24 percent reduction by 35%, according to Rhodium Latest group analysis. “Absent meaningful political action, we are a long way from meeting the goals that the US has committed to under the Paris Agreement,” King said, referring to a 2015 global climate conference. Even as Democrats and environmental groups pressed Biden to act alone, some legal scholars questioned whether a climate change emergency declaration was warranted. “Emergency powers are designed for events like terrorist attacks, epidemics and natural disasters,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Such powers “are not intended to deal with persistent problems, however dire. And they are not meant to be an end in Congress,” Goitein wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post last year.
