President-elect Joe Biden
Joe BidenUS to close two Russian consulates over money: Congress passes law to prevent closure as coronavirus talks drag on over weekend | Federal Reserve Struggle Endangers Relief Talks Leading Legal Experts Urge Aggressive Immigration Actions MORE On Saturday it launched its candidates for key positions on climate and energy, making public its diverse team as the right group to wage the government’s battle against climate change.
Biden shared the experience and diversity of his team, noting that some were “a barrier” and said his candidacies meant the seriousness with which his administration would address “the existential threat of our time: change climate change “.
“People, we are in crisis. Just as we must be a unified nation in response to COVID-19, we need a unified national response to climate change, “Wilmington, Del said.” We must meet the moment with the urgency it demands of us as it would during any national emergency. “
The president-elect set his goals, including creating one million clean energy jobs in the auto industry and implementing a carbon-free electricity sector by 2035.
“For the American people, yes, the goals I have proposed are bold, the challenges they pose to us are enormous. But I want you to know that we can do this. We have to do it and we will do it, ”he said.
Climate change has become one of the Democratic Party’s most thorny issues, with Biden, a centrist, advocating a zero-emission economy by 2050 and resisting the ban on fracking, while progressives are pushing for it. take more serious measures, including the Green New Deal, which aims to eliminate fossil fuels by 2030.
Still, the president-elect has said his energy team will take an aggressive stance toward the global threat. Biden specifically promoted the candidates ’deep experience working in climate sciences and climate issues.
But more than her experience, Biden was quick to praise her diversity, including receiving it. Deb Haaland
Debra Haaland ENERGY AT NIGHT: Government Scientists Predict Building Boundary Walls Could Harm Wildlife Refuge | The nomination for Haaland generates excitement in Native American communities Trump officials mistakenly awarded a grant from Alaska to open the report Tongass The Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by Mastercard – The relief of COVID-19, omnibus talks are reduced to the thread The nomination for Haaland generates excitement in the communities of Native Americans MORE (DN.M.), the first Native American played to hold a secretary position and his selection to head the Department of the Interior.
“This moment is profound when we consider that a former Secretary of the Interior proclaimed that his goal was to ‘civilize or exterminate us.’ I am a living witness to the failure of this horrible ideology, ”he said, referring to former Secretary of the Interior Donald Grinde, who served in the 1850s.
“We know that climate change can only be solved through the participation of all departments and all communities,” he added. “By uniting in a common purpose, this country can meet this challenge.”
Nominees also pledged to keep social justice at the center of their efforts, noting that communities of color often carry the weight of the impacts of climate change.
“We will be motivated by our convictions that all people in our great country have a right 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 have. live there, “said Michael Regan, Biden’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).” We will move forward with a sense of urgency about climate change, protecting our drinking water and enacting a framework. environmental justice that empowers people in all communities. “
If confirmed, Regan will be the first head of the Black EPA.
Candidates for energy and climate were just the latest group of officers to be deployed as Biden builds an administration that “looks like America.”