President Biden 'needs to declare a climate emergency': Rep. Ro Khanna
Amid record heatwaves and extreme weather incidents, the issue of climate change has become front and center this summer.
In a speech on Wednesday, President Biden called climate change a “clear and present danger” and listed actions the administration is taking to address the crisis. However, Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) wants the president to take it a step further.
“He needs to declare a climate emergency," Khanna said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "I’m glad he is highlighting what he is doing, but we need to do more. The declaration of the climate emergency will give him authority to put more funds into solar, wind, renewables. It will give him the authority to stop the permitting for projects that are going to emit tremendous amounts of CO2."
Biden was reportedly considering declaring a climate emergency after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) ended talks over climate legislation. The president's remarks Wednesday signaled that the federal government would continue to take steps to fund renewable energy initiatives.
For example, the Department of Energy (DOE) has received $56 million to spur innovation in the solar manufacturing industry and $18.4 million to develop more clean energy technologies. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Biden-Harris administration has also allocated $2.6 billion to fund the Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program and the Carbon Dioxide Transport/Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) Program.
Khanna stated that declaring a climate emergency is important even as gas prices remain a top concern for Americans. The average national gas price has fallen over the course of the month and is hovering at $4.44 per gallon, according to AAA.
“There are other things we can do to lower gas prices,” Khanna explained. “The things we can do is ban the export of oil and gas, except to our allies. We could have oil windfall profits tax and put the money back in the pockets of working-class folks … the federal government should be buying at the dip and then selling back at a subsidized price.”
In a letter to President Biden, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) called for the U.S. to halt crude oil exports, which Pallone claimed would reduce domestic prices.
The Monthly U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services report from the U.S. Department of Commerce and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revealed that the U.S. exported $10.4 billion worth of crude oil in May 2022 and $43.7 billion worth of oil year-to-date (YTD).
Khanna and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have also introduced the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act, which would impose an excise tax on big oil companies and distribute a rebate to individual taxpayers.
In Khanna's view, there isn't a direct trade-off between climate investment and oil investment when it comes to the immediate prices Americans pay at the pump.
“The drilling takes years — that’s not going to do anything to bring down prices right away,” he said. "By the way, if we’re drilling and just exporting it, it is not going to help the U.S. price either.”
No comments:
Post a Comment