The Biden Administration on Jan. 27 released a detailed fact sheet highlighting numerous steps it plans to take as part of an executive action to tackle climate change. Among these are the pausing of new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and offshore waters; the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies; significantly increasing land conservation acres in the U.S.; and the adoption of “climate-smart agricultural practices” that produce verifiable carbon reductions.
“These Executive Orders follow through on President Biden’s promise to take aggressive action to tackle climate change and build on the executive actions that the President took on his first day in office, including rejoining the Paris Agreement and immediate review of harmful rollbacks of standards that protect our air, water, and communities,” the White House said.
The administration said its “ambitious goals” are intended to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and a “net-zero” emissions economy in the U.S. by 2050, while identifying climate considerations as “an essential element of U.S. foreign policy and national security.”
The order directs the Secretary of Agriculture to collect input from farmers, ranchers, and other stakeholders on how to use federal programs to encourage adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices that the administration promises will create new sources of income and jobs for rural Americans.
The order also commits to the “goal of conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and oceans by 2030, and launches a process for stakeholder engagement from agricultural and forest landowners, fishermen, Tribes, States, Territories, local officials, and others to identify strategies that will result in broad participation,” the White House said.
The order further directs the Secretary of the Interior to “pause on entering into new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or offshore waters to the extent possible,” and directs federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies while identifying opportunities to “spur innovation, commercialization, and deployment of clean energy technologies and infrastructure.”
The order also formally establishes a Civilian Climate Corps Initiative; an Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities; a National Climate Task Force with representation across 21 federal agencies and departments; and a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, which will be led by the first-ever National Climate Advisor and Deputy National Climate Advisor.
Biden also promised to sign an Executive Order re-establishing the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, as well as a Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking, which the administration said will “protect scientists from political interference” so they can “make evidence-based decisions guided by the best available science and data.”