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Joe Biden Issues Climate Plan That Aims Beyond Obama’s Goal Climate Change Takes Center Stage as Biden and Warren Release Plans
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has faced criticism from Democratic presidential rivals about his commitment to combating climate change, on Tuesday unveiled a plan that promised to reinstate the climate policies of the Obama administration but also included some unexpected proposals that would push significantly beyond what the previous White House achieved. WASHINGTON — When Joseph R. Biden Jr. was Barack Obama’s vice president, their administration brokered the landmark Paris climate accord and imposed the nation’s first federal regulations for cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
Mr. Biden, who in tone and substance is one of the most centrist candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, has insisted he is no moderate when it comes to protecting the environment, though progressives have been skeptical. Polls show that fighting climate change is a top priority for Democratic voters, and Mr. Biden selected the issue for his second policy rollout, after an education plan he released last week. Now, as Mr. Biden runs for president, he has laid out an ambitious climate plan of his own that goes well beyond what Mr. Obama achieved, proposing $1.7 trillion in spending and a tax or fee on planet-warming pollution with the aim of eliminating the nation’s net carbon emissions by 2050.
“On day one, Biden will sign a series of new executive orders with unprecedented reach that go well beyond the Obama-Biden Administration platform and put us on the right track,” his campaign wrote. “He will not only recommit the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change — he will go much further.” The sweeping proposal from the typically moderate Mr. Biden demonstrates just how far the Democratic field has moved on climate change. His environmental targets are similar to the goals of the Green New Deal put forward by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, which even the House Democratic speaker has been unwilling to embrace.
[Elizabeth Warren said as president, she would invest $2 trillion in climate-friendly industries over a decade.] Mr. Biden’s proposals came just hours before a rival candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, released her own climate proposal as part of a $2 trillion green manufacturing plan. Her plan would create a National Institutes of Clean Energy and push federal spending toward American-made renewable energy technology.
The chief policy goals of Mr. Biden’s plan are similar to the contours of the Green New Deal, the sweeping and ambitious climate change proposal put forward by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, in February. Most specifically, Mr. Biden’s plan calls for the United States to entirely eliminate its net emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution by 2050. [Read more: Elizabeth Warren Proposes ‘Aggressive Intervention’ to Create Jobs]
By comparison, Mr. Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, had pledged to the world that the United States would lower its emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. As the Democratic base increasingly demands action on climate change, other candidates have unfurled major environmental policies. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington is focusing his entire campaign on climate change, and former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas has also released a proposal.
“This definitely goes further than the Obama administration in terms of aspiration,” said Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard. “Climate change is an incredibly important issue for the Democratic base right now,” said Nick Gourevitch, a Democratic pollster who said he is neutral in the race. “It’s about the future, and it’s something that this president has made worse in the minds of the Democratic base,” he added, referring to President Trump.
Mr. Biden would also call for an investment of $1.7 trillion over 10 years into clean energy and other initiatives. Like the Green New Deal, Mr. Biden’s plan calls broadly for “environmental justice,” programs designed to help poor people and minorities who face disproportionate economic harm from environmental pollution, and to provide retraining and new economic opportunities for coal, oil, gas and other industrial workers displaced by the decline of the fossil fuel economy. Mr. Biden faces deep skepticism from the liberal wing of his party, even as he leads most early polls. How far he would go on climate change seemed to be a daily question in his first month as a candidate. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is also running for president, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez took swipes at him over that issue.
The campaign said the spending would be paid for by rolling back President Trump’s tax breaks for corporations. On Tuesday, however, environmental activists largely lauded Mr. Biden’s plan and credited the influence of the Green New Deal.
Mr. Biden’s plan is not as ambitious or detailed as those of some of his more environmentally minded competitors, but some of its goals are similar. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, who is basing his campaign on fighting climate change, has called for the nation to eliminate its net carbon emissions by 2045. “He put out a comprehensive climate plan that cites the Green New Deal and names climate change as the greatest challenge facing America and the world,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environmental activist group that has championed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal. “The pressure worked.”
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“This clearly demonstrates that Biden and his people recognize the polling that Democrats in the primary electorate are skewed to the left, and the polling demonstrates that they care about climate change,” Mr. Stavins said. Mr. Biden’s base tilts toward older and more centrist voters, rather than the younger progressives who are traditionally more closely associated with environmental concerns. But Mr. Biden has said that he has “never been middle of the road on the environment,” stressing on the campaign trail that he was an early advocate for combating climate change, and frequently referring to work he did on that issue dating to the 1980s, when he was a Delaware senator.
Before Mr. Biden released his proposal, prominent liberal politicians and activists expressed doubts about his commitment to a bold environmental policy. Democratic pollsters say that in surveys and focus groups, climate change often emerges as the second most important issue to the party’s primary voters, following health care — a departure from previous presidential campaign cycles when the environment was sometimes an afterthought.
A Reuters report last month said Mr. Biden was seeking a “middle ground” to combat climate change, which his campaign called a mischaracterization of his position. But that reporting appeared to prompt Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is also running for president, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to make oblique swipes at Mr. Biden. “We’ve seen the ground shift, certainly in the Democratic Party and with Democratic voters, around the importance of climate change,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who is working for former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, another presidential candidate.
Over the weekend, speaking to a crowd at the California Democratic Party’s convention, Mr. Sanders seized on the phrase “no middle ground,” applying it to a spate of progressive priorities, remarks that were widely seen as a rebuke of Mr. Biden. In some ways, Mr. Biden’s plan goes even further than the Green New Deal, which offers aspirational targets but few concrete policy steps to achieve them.
“We have got to make it clear that when the future of the planet is at stake, there is no middle ground,” he said. Mr. Biden proposes that Congress pass a law by 2025 to establish some form of price or tax on carbon dioxide pollution, a policy championed by most economists as the most effective way to fight climate change. Mr. Obama tried but failed to pass such a bill in 2010 after Republicans successfully attacked the idea of a carbon price as a national energy tax — and that was when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate.
Mr. Biden has stressed on the campaign trail that he was an early advocate for combating climate change, frequently referring to work he did on that issue dating to the 1980s, when he was a Delaware senator. He will campaign in New Hampshire on Tuesday and is expected to highlight his new proposal on the trail. Mr. Obama later drew criticism from Republicans for bypassing Congress and using his executive authority to instate the nation’s first major federal climate change policies, including regulations to curb planet-warming pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks.
On Tuesday, environmental activists largely lauded Mr. Biden’s plan and credited the influence of the Green New Deal. But he never came close to a plan like Mr. Biden’s intended to zero out the nation’s carbon emissions by midcentury, pledging instead that the United States would lower its emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
“He put out a comprehensive climate plan that cites the Green New Deal and names climate change as the greatest challenge facing America and the world,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, which has championed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal. Mr. Biden’s plan calls for a federal investment of $1.7 trillion over 10 years into clean energy and other initiatives, which the campaign said would be paid for by rolling back Mr. Trump’s tax breaks for corporations. It also proposes leveraging state, private and local funds, for a total expenditure of $5 trillion over a decade.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign on Tuesday reiterated Mr. Trump’s frequent criticism of the Green New Deal. It pledges support for environmental justice programs, designed to help minorities and poor people disproportionately harmed by pollution, and urges an end to new permits for oil and gas exploration on public lands.
Mr. Biden, who is seeking to appeal to blue-collar workers who helped deliver states in the industrial Midwest to Mr. Trump in 2016, promised retraining programs and new economic opportunities for coal workers and others displaced by the decline of the fossil fuel economy.
“We’re not going to forget the workers, either,” Mr. Biden said in a video promoting the plan.
Mr. Biden’s proposal “would be an effective climate change policy,” said Richard Newell, president of Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan Washington research organization focused on energy and environment issues. “But for the kinds of shifts envisioned in this plan and the other Democratic plans, there needs to be a sea change in Congress.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign reiterated on Tuesday the president’s frequent criticism of climate plans like the Green New Deal.
“If they want to win the nomination, all of the Democrats will ultimately have no choice but embrace the Green New Deal, which is just a wish list of unrealistic, socialist policy ideals,” the spokeswoman, Erin Perrine, said in a statement.“If they want to win the nomination, all of the Democrats will ultimately have no choice but embrace the Green New Deal, which is just a wish list of unrealistic, socialist policy ideals,” the spokeswoman, Erin Perrine, said in a statement.
Hours after the Biden campaign rolled out the plan, an official with a progressive group and an article in the conservative Daily Caller flagged a handful of sentences in the proposal that appeared to borrow language from other organizations. Hours after the Biden campaign rolled out the proposal, an official with a progressive group and an article in the conservative Daily Caller flagged a handful of sentences in the document that appeared to borrow language from other organizations.
It resurrected a sensitive issue for the Biden campaign: Accusations of plagiarism forced Mr. Biden out of the presidential race in 1988.It resurrected a sensitive issue for the Biden campaign: Accusations of plagiarism forced Mr. Biden out of the presidential race in 1988.
“Several citations, some from sources cited in other parts of the plan, were inadvertently left out of the final version of the 22-page document,” the campaign said in a statement on Tuesday. “As soon as we were made aware of it, we updated to include the proper citations.”“Several citations, some from sources cited in other parts of the plan, were inadvertently left out of the final version of the 22-page document,” the campaign said in a statement on Tuesday. “As soon as we were made aware of it, we updated to include the proper citations.”
In the previous administration, Mr. Obama won accolades from environmentalists and enmity from Republicans for bypassing Congress and using his executive authority to instate the nation’s first major federal climate change policies, including regulations to curb planet-warming pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks. He was also a lead broker of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, which committed nearly every country to putting forth plans to reduce emissions. Other candidates have set out their own far-reaching goals.
Mr. Trump, who campaigned on pledges to deregulate industry and regularly mocks the established science of human-caused climate change, has moved to roll back those environmental rules and withdraw from the Paris accord. Ms. Warren said Tuesday she would spend $2 trillion over 10 years for environmentally sustainable research, manufacturing and exports, intended to help “achieve the ambitious targets of the Green New Deal.” She also favors a moratorium on new federal fossil fuel leases on public lands.
Mr. Biden’s plan calls on Congress to mandate cuts in fossil fuel pollution, a move that could stave off the criticism leveled at Mr. Obama that he abused his authority in enacting climate change policy through executive branch regulations. But it is hard to see how a Congress with at least one chamber controlled by Republicans would pass such a plan when Mr. Obama failed to push it through while both chambers were controlled by his own party. Ms. Warren pitched her plan as part of a broad program of economic intervention to support American manufacturing and promote job creation. She, too, said she would prioritize investments in historically marginalized communities and provide benefits for fossil fuel workers.
Mr. Biden’s plan contains few specifics about what such legislation would entail, beyond saying it would establish “an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone targets no later than 2025.” But it suggests that such a bill would include a tax or other form of price on carbon dioxide pollution, which is not included in the Green New Deal. Mr. Inslee has called for the nation to eliminate its net carbon emissions by 2045 and has proposed $3 trillion in federal spending to create eight million green energy jobs. And Mr. O’Rourke would spend $1.5 trillion over a decade on climate and clean energy programs, with plans to leverage an additional $3.5 trillion in state, local and other funding.
Economists widely agree that those types of policies are the most effective form of reducing planet-warming pollution, although past efforts to enact them have proven politically toxic. Several other candidates, including Mr. Sanders and Senators Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey, have formally backed the Green New Deal legislation but have not put forth their own major climate change policies.
The plan’s most aggressive initiatives call for flexing the United States’ trade and foreign policy muscles to compel other countries, particularly China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide polluter, to reduce emissions. Combining climate change policy with trade policy, the plan calls for the imposition of “carbon tariffs” on goods imported from heavily polluting economies, a move that would directly affect Chinese imports. [Check out the Democratic field with our candidate tracker.]
Mr. Biden’s most aggressive initiatives call for flexing the United States’ trade and foreign policy muscles to compel other countries, particularly China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide polluter, to reduce emissions.
Combining climate change policy with trade policy, the plan calls for the imposition of “carbon tariffs” on goods imported from heavily polluting economies, a move that would directly affect Chinese imports. It also gives Mr. Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a chance to highlight his credentials in the international arena.
“We can no longer separate trade policy from our climate objectives,” the Biden campaign wrote. “Biden will not allow other nations, including China, to game the system by becoming destination economies for polluters, undermining our climate efforts and exploiting American workers and businesses.”“We can no longer separate trade policy from our climate objectives,” the Biden campaign wrote. “Biden will not allow other nations, including China, to game the system by becoming destination economies for polluters, undermining our climate efforts and exploiting American workers and businesses.”
While the idea of placing tariffs or quotas based on the level of carbon dioxide pollution associated with specific imported goods has long been discussed in Washington, it has never been enacted, in part out of fear of sparking a trade war. But Mr. Trump has already started the process to tax nearly everything China sends to the United States. While the idea of placing tariffs or quotas based on pollution associated with specific imported goods has long been discussed in Washington, it has never been enacted, in part out of fear of sparking a trade war. But Mr. Trump has already started the process to tax nearly everything China sends to the United States.
The plan calls for the United States to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and to take the lead in pushing members of the pact to regularly strengthen their pledges to reduce planet-warming pollution, although such a mechanism is already built into the original text of the accord. The president also has pledged to withdraw the country from the Paris climate agreement. Mr. Biden’s plan calls for the United States to rejoin the agreement and to take the lead in pushing members of the pact to regularly strengthen their pledges to reduce planet-warming pollution, although such a mechanism is already built into the original text of the accord.
A Biden administration would convene a world summit of the most heavily polluting economies, the campaign said, and the president would urge those nations to commit to even more ambitious pollution reduction plans. A Biden administration would convene a world summit of the most heavily polluting economies, the campaign said, and Mr. Biden would urge those nations to commit to even more ambitious pollution reduction plans.