President-elect Joe Biden issued a dire warning about climate change on Saturday when he announced the nominees to form his environmental team. Mr Biden stressed the need for the US to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and discussed how the country has often failed to protect low-income communities from environmental threats.
“We are in a crisis,” said Mr Biden. “Just as we need to be a united country in response to COVID-19, we need a unified national response to climate change. We need to meet the moment with the urgency it demands, as you would during any national emergency.”
While Mr Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris both emphasized the ambitious agenda of the Biden administration, Mr Biden insisted that they do not propose “pie in the sky dreams, these are concrete workable solutions”.
Mr Biden linked the need to tackle climate change with “environmental justice”, saying it has been “generations” since the country fulfilled its “basic obligation” to provide every American with clean air and safe drinking water.
Mr. Biden praised the diversity of his cabinet nominees, saying there are at least 12 historic appointments, including a congressman Deb Haaland, who, if confirmed, would be the first Native American to head the Interior Department.
Haaland, who tweeted earlier this week that a “voice like mine has never been a cabinet secretary or head of the Department of the Interior,” said growing up in her mother’s household in Pueblo made her “furious”.
“This moment is profound when we consider that a former Home Secretary once proclaimed his goal of ‘civilizing or exterminating [Native Americans]”Said Haaland.” I am living proof of the failure of that gruesome ideology. ”
In addition to Haaland, Mr. Biden introduced further nominees: Jennifer Granholm as Energy Minister, Michael Regan as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Brenda Mallory as Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, Gina McCarthy as National Climate Adviser and Ali Zaidi as Deputy National Climate Adviser . Mr Biden previously announced that John Kerry will serve as the special presidential envoy for climate.
Granholm was previously the Governor of Michigan and is an outspoken advocate for clean energy as Mr. Biden strives to switch the US from fossil fuels.
Granholm said Saturday she is “obsessed” with “creating well-paid jobs in America in a global economy” and “grasping the opportunities that a clean energy economy will provide for workers.”
Regan, who would be the first black man to lead the EPA upon confirmation, emphasized that environmental protection and economic prosperity go “hand in hand.”
“We are going to make the EPA once again a strong partner to the states, not a roadblock,” said Regan. “We will be driven by our belief that every person in our amazing country is entitled to clean air, clean water and a healthier life, no matter how much money they have in their pocket, the color of their skin or the community they live in. . “