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WASHINGTON – President Biden on Wednesday will direct federal agencies to determine how expansive the ban on new oil and gas drilling on federal land should be, part of a set of executive orders that will effectively launch its agenda to combat climate change. , two people with knowledge of the president’s plans said Monday.
An eventual ban on new drilling licenses would fulfill a campaign promise that infuriated the oil industry and became a central theme in the struggle for Pennsylvania’s critical battle state, where the method of extracting natural gas known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking , the business became big.
The move is the most prominent of several that Biden announced on Wednesday, the two people said. The president will also advise the government to conserve 30% of all federal land and water by 2030, create a task force to put together a government action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and issue a memorandum elevating climate change to a national security priority. Mr. Biden will also create several new commissions and positions within the government with a focus on environmental justice and the creation of environmentally friendly jobs, including one to help displaced coal communities.
Programs and proclamations should signal that climate change is back on the government’s agenda, bigger than ever. What they are not going to deliver, at least not yet, is an abrupt and rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
“Can this government do a lot on its own? Yes, ”said Jonathan H. Adler, a professor of law at Case Western Reserve University. “But,” he added, “if the standard, however, is atmospheric stabilization, I am skeptical that the government can do something close enough administratively.”
This will require legislation, said Adler, “especially if there is a premium for achieving emission reductions as quickly as possible.”
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the orders, and two people close to the government noted that the final decisions on them are still being refined.
The likelihood that Congress will pass much of Biden’s $ 2 trillion climate change agenda is only slightly greater now that Democrats have the minimum possible majority in a 50-50 Senate. There is little hope of passing a carbon tax or other mechanism to put a price tag on greenhouse gas pollution, which would lead companies concerned with costs to emit less.
Without legislation, the government will have to rely on the regulatory process to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and chimneys and improve vehicle fuel efficiency, but that also takes time. It cannot be done by executive order.
“The tons of carbon pollution in the air is what matters in the end,” said Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University and co-chairman of a group that delivered climate policy projects to the Biden government.
Prophet said the orders on Wednesday represented an important first step.
“The Biden government can do a lot to start putting the country on the right track with its own authorities,” said the Prophet. Wednesday, he said, “starts the process”.
The expected crackdown on new oil and gas leases goes beyond Biden’s takeover day, which suspended the authority of the Interior Department and other agencies to issue leases or drilling permits for 60 days, while management reviewed the implications legal and policy requirements of the current federal mineral leasing program.
The new policy will ask the agencies to consider how much federal land and water should be preserved from mining and drilling or set aside for renewable energy production, according to the two people familiar with the order, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were anonymous. is not allowed to discuss the policy publicly.
The extraction of fossil fuels from land and public waters is responsible for almost a quarter of all carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, and Biden campaigned to end new drilling as a key to fighting climate change.
Much of the environmental community applauded the plan, although some said Biden was not going far enough.
“It is vital that President Biden permanently prohibits all extraction of new fossil fuels, including hydraulic fracturing, on federal lands and waters,” said Mitch Jones, director of policies for Food & Water Watch, an environmental group.
Throughout the campaign, the Democratic Party’s left wing pressured Biden to call for a national ban on hydraulic fracturing, including on private land, where most of the hydraulic fracturing is carried out. He declined, but the oil and gas industry remained skeptical. His move on the day of the inauguration brought condemnation by the sector and some landowners.
“Your request is a direct attack on our economy, sovereignty and our right to self-determination,” wrote the Ute indigenous tribe in Utah to the Department of the Interior in a letter released by the American Petroleum Institute.
The climate task force that Biden must create will devise a plan for what government officials like to call the “whole government” approach to climate change and will focus on two main areas: environmental justice and job creation.
It will require all agencies to take climate change into account in government decisions, from federal purchases to financial regulations and court deals, experts said.
It will also create a number of councils and committees to try to ensure that poor and minority communities, as well as Americans living in coal countries, see the economic benefits of clean energy policies.
Biden is also expected to revive and strengthen an Obama-era presidential memorandum in 2016, making climate change a national security priority and requiring intelligence agencies to incorporate climate change into their analysis of national security threats. It was quickly revoked by the Trump administration.
Alice Hill, who oversaw the National Security Council’s climate planning during the Obama administration, said the president’s guidance is necessary because the senior policymakers who request this analysis, and the intelligence officials who prepare it, often do not have it. experience thinking about climate risks.
“When I was at the White House, the risks of climate change were rarely discussed,” Hill said.
She and others said Biden needed to go further, potentially converting the memo into an executive order that has more authority to direct agencies to take steps such as defining strategies and policies to deal with climate-related threats.
“Today’s climate reality is higher temperatures, stronger storms, more destructive forest fires, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and prolonged drought,” said Sherri Goodman, Obama’s undersecretary of defense for environmental security and now a senior member. the Wilson Center Environmental Change and Safety Program.
“We need a climate security plan for America that protects American infrastructure and puts climate and clean energy innovation at the forefront,” she said.
Christopher Flavelle contributed reports.