New Evergreen Report: Ahead of SOTU, 6 Ways President Biden Can Use Executive Action to Take on the Climate Crisis

In 2022, Both Executive Action & Legislation are Critical for Climate, Jobs & Justice 

On the eve of the State Of The Union address, Evergreen Action released a new report, “6 Ways President Biden Can Use Executive Action to Take on the Climate Crisis,” that shows how the Biden Administration can use existing authorities to make progress on climate, jobs, and justice in 2022.

While the administration took a number of important steps in its first year, this paper shows how meeting the president’s own climate commitments will require greater progress through executive action. This is in addition to the passage of transformative climate investment legislation in Congress.

Read the full report here.

“We know that passing major climate investment legislation is vital to achieving our nation’s climate goals, but President Biden must also advance a bold climate agenda through executive action,” said Evergreen Action Co-Founder Sam Ricketts. “In its first year, the Biden administration launched a whole-of-government effort and took important steps forward, however much more is required to meet the president’s own climate commitments and the scale of this crisis. In 2022, the federal government must both walk and chew gum on the path to a climate-safe future. President Biden must mobilize greater climate progress through executive action, and in Congress, to meet this critical moment.”

Evergreen’s new report offers a detailed action plan for the Biden administration to use existing authorities to tackle greenhouse gas pollution through executive action, broken down into six key areas of focus:

  1. Powering Toward 100% Clean Electricity

  2. Building Clean Vehicles & Transportation Infrastructure

  3. Cleaning Up the Built Environment

  4. Leading the World in Clean Manufacturing

  5. Confronting Fossil Fuel Industry Pollution & Giveaways

  6. Promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture & Healthy Forests, Waterways, & Oceans

The paper also highlights 4 key principles that should animate the Biden administration’s approach as it advances executive action: i) Mobilizing Whole-of-Government Climate Action; ii) Advancing Environmental Justice; iii) Supporting Good-Paying Union Jobs, and iv) Engaging State Climate Leadership. 

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Path to a 50% Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Pollution by 2030.

President Biden ran, and won, on the most ambitious climate agenda of any presidential nominee in U.S. history. When he took office last year, his vision was brought forward in the administration’s commitment to science-backed climate pollution reduction targets and a whole-of-government approach to tackling the climate crisis and building a just and equitable clean energy economy. The Biden administration took important initial steps to achieve these goals in its first year, but there remains much work to be done, in 2022 and beyond, to fulfill its commitments and prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

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