The Energy 202: Biden's extremely busy Day 1 on climate change
clock with Alexandra Ellerbeck Newly inaugurated President Biden spent much of his first day in office jump-starting his agenda for addressing climate change signing orders, staffing up departments and laying plans for the days ahead. The new administration is trying to do a lot quickly, aiming to make up for lost time under then-President Donald Trump to cut emissions and forestall the dangerous warming of the planet. Biden outlined the stakes in his first speech as president, saying a cry for survival comes from planet itself, a cry that cant be any more desperate or any more clear. He said fighting the battle to save our planet by getting the climate under control" is one of his top priorities. But his agenda is already facing political hurdles both at home and abroad even as the world faces a ticking clock, with U.N. scientists saying nations have just a decade to get climate change under control. Biden's biggest move, just hours after being sworn in, was officially rejoining the Paris climate accord, an international agreement designed to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius. After taking the oath of office this afternoon, I got right to work taking action to: - Control the pandemic - Provide economic relief - Tackle climate change - Advance racial equity With Biden's signature, the United States will in 30 days officially rejoin the agreement set up under Biden's old boss, Barack Obama. Trump formally withdrew the country from the accord in November 2020. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were pleased to see the United States reengaging with the rest of the world on the environment. Je salue le retour des Etats-Unis au sein de l'Accord de Paris pour le climat : Welcome back! C'est tous ensemble que nous pourrons reussir a relever les defis de notre temps. C'est tous ensemble que nous pourrons changer la donne climatique en agissant pour notre planete. https://t.co/FoXYWtUWV7 Congratulations to @JoeBiden on being sworn in as President of the United States and to @KamalaHarris on her historic inauguration. Americas leadership is vital on the issues that matter to us all, from climate change to COVID, and I look forward to working with President Biden. Some leaders and officials have reached out to embrace the incoming Biden administration, offering congratulations and speaking of their hopes for cooperation, especially on issues that fell by the wayside under Trump, such as climate change. Most took a somewhat reserved tone, but a few, including some U.S. rivals, were more vociferous, The Posts Adam Taylor reports , citing the example of Chinas state news agency Xinhua which tweeted, Good riddance, Donald Trump! Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated the new administration on the day of Biden's inauguration. But the day before, he levied harsh criticism of Biden's decision to nix the Keystone XL pipeline , which Trudeau supports. Biden followed through with that plan, revoking a key permit for the project, which would have brought crude from Alberta to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. Biden's first call with as foreign leader, scheduled for Friday, is with Trudeau. I expect they will certainly discuss the important relationship with Canada, as well as his decision on the Keystone pipeline," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in her first press briefing. They argued the international agreement penalizes the United States while giving a pass to China and other developing countries when it comes to cutting emissions. A return to the Paris climate agreement will raise Americans energy costs and wont solve climate change, said John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who is set to be the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The decision for @POTUS to re-join the Paris Climate Agreement will cost American jobs and force households and small business to pay higher utility bills. And Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) joined seven of his Senate Republican colleagues to put forward legislation seeking to reauthorize the pipeline, which crosses the U.S.-Canada border in his state. Its only day one, and with the stroke of a pen, Biden has already taken steps to kill American energy projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline which is critical to energy producing states like Montana, Daines said in a statement. Biden ordered agencies to review a wide swath of Trump's environmental policies, seeking to rewrite or overturn scores of decisions on nature protections in Utah and Alaska, energy conservation for home appliances, endangered species, car pollution, drinking water, toxic chemicals and transporting liquefied natural gas by rail. The Interior Department announced a series of hires shortly signaling it will move to halt oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters. The department brought on Paniz Rezaeerod, who previously worked for Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.) on legislation to ban offshore drilling, as its new deputy director of congressional affairs. And Marissa Knodel, who once managed a campaign for Friends of the Earth to stop new federal fossil-fuel development, is joining the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as an adviser. One of Biden's biggest climate promise was to ban new drilling on public lands something that faces significant legal and political challenges and is much easier to say than to do, experts say. On Wednesday, Biden moved forward with a temporary moratorium on oil and natural gas leasing activities in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the move in the pristine wilderness that Democrats opposed. When asked about ending drilling elsewhere, Psaki told reporters the leases will be reviewed by our team. The Biden administration is gearing to brand Jan. 27 as Climate Day, according to a document obtained by our colleagues Juliet Eilperin, Steven Mufson and Brady Dennis . The actions include signing an executive order elevating climate change to a national security priority, reestablishing the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and directing science and evidence based decision-making in federal agencies. And several of the deputies who will carry out that agenda will have Senate confirmation hearings in coming weeks, too. Biden's nominee to be Environmental Protection Agency administrator, North Carolina regulator Michael S. Regan , will need to be confirmed by the Senate, as do Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) and former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm (D), picked to run the Interior and Energy departments, respectively. Hearing schedules have yet to be set. So far, the confirmation process for Bidens Cabinet is running behind schedule compared to previous transitions, and impeachment proceedings against Trump could delay it even further. Most presidents have had their energy secretary in place within a week of inauguration. The last week saw the Trump administration push through a slew of new rules and environmental rollbacks, and the final days and hours of Trump's tenure were no different. A new study published in Functional Ecology finds that Yellowstone;s grizzlies may bathe to avoid overheating. The researchers estimated that a cool bath could increase the number of hours that a female lactating bear could be active by up to 60 percent, the Spokesman Review reports . Bears are well adapted to cooler temperatures, but have trouble getting rid of excess heat, a fact that could become all the more challenging amid global warming. The story isnt so much that heat is hard on lactating bears and its only going to get harder as it warms up, Ryan Long, a professor of wildlife sciences at the University of Idaho and author on the paper, told the Spokesman Review. Those two things are true, but the real punchline is theyve figured out a way to overcome that.