Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer suggested on Monday that President Biden should consider declaring an emergency on climate change.
“It may be a good idea for President Biden to declare a climate emergency,” the New York Democrat told Rachel Maddow.
Schumer apparently suggested that Biden do for the climate what President Trump did across the border – declare a national emergency to bypass the legislative debate and use executive authority.
“He can do many, many things under emergency powers … that he could do without legislation,” said the Senate leader.
“Trump used this emergency for a stupid wall, which was not an emergency. But if there was ever an emergency, the weather is one of them,” added Schumer.
BIDEN, UK’S JOHNSON DISCUSSION PARIS ACCORD, TRADE, CORONAVIRUS
Republicans have warned that Trump, using a national emergency to deal with immigration and finance the border wall, could set a worrying precedent.
“If today, the national emergency is border security … tomorrow the national emergency could be climate change,” Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Told CNBC in 2019.
Biden has already used the powers of his new office to promote a series of environmental measures. In some of its first executive orders, the United States returned to adhere to the Paris Climate Agreement and terminated the license for the Keystone XL pipeline.
For the first time in almost a decade, Democrats control the Senate, the House and the White House. But most legislation still needs to pass the 60 vote barrier. Schumer – who has not pledged to leave the obstruction permanently – told MSNBC that his party was looking for ways to include Biden’s climate change legislation and other parts of the Build Back Better plan in the budget reconciliation. Reconciliation removes obstruction in certain budget legislation.
DEM SENATOR WANTS BIDDING TO DECLARE ‘NATIONAL EMERGENCY’ OF THE CLIMATE
“There may be things that are reconcilable,” said Schumer about the ability to include climate rules in budget legislation.
This week’s reports predict that the Biden government will take further executive action on the matter on Wednesday. A memo obtained by Reuters revealed a new round of impending executive orders to combat climate change internally and raise it as a threat to national security. Biden will impose a moratorium on federal oil and gas leases, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
Top climate advisers also said that the Biden government is increasing pressure on China to tighten its greenhouse gas emissions targets.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
John Kerry, special envoy for Biden’s climate, said a recent pledge from China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, “was not good enough.” In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised that China would be carbon neutral by 2060, 10 years after other Paris Climate Agreement nations agreed to do so.