Category: Biden_Statements_And_Releases

Last week, Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) Member Heather Boushey, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Deputy Director for Industrial Innovation Justina Gallegos, OSTP Chief Environmental Economist Solomon Hsiang, and other officials from across the Biden-Harris Administration participated in a workshop on Incorporating Climate into Macroeconomic Modeling conve

Over the past two years, more than 100 million Americans have been personally affected by an extreme weather event. The record-shattering heat wave that hit Puerto Rico earlier this month, recent wildfire smoke that blanketed the Midwest and East Coast, and devastating storms in California, are just the latest evidence that climate change is not a far-off threat. It’s a crisis that’s here now

More than 100 million Americans are under Air Quality Index Alerts due to smoke drift from historic wildfire activity throughout Canada, which is facing one of its worst wildfire seasons on record. There are over 425 active wildfires in Canada and nearly 10 million acres have burned, 17 times the 20-year average. Since January 1, 2023, 19,574 wildfires have burned 616,486 acres across the United States. Most current large fire activity in the United States is concentrated in the Southwest.

The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in Sackett v. EPA will take our country backwards. It puts our Nation’s wetlands – and the rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds connected to them – at risk of pollution and destruction, jeopardizing the sources of clean water that millions of American families, farmers, and businesses rely on.

Today’s agreement between the Department of the Interior and seven Colorado River Basin states on a consensus-based approach marks an important step forward in our efforts to protect the stability of the Colorado River System in the face of climate change and historic drought conditions. Thanks to my Investing in America agenda, we are deploying record resources to support water conservation and improve the Colorado River’s long-term sustainability.

The United States and Australia recognize that climate change is a threat to global stability, security, and prosperity, including in the Indo-Pacific. The United States and Australia affirm that accelerating the global clean energy transformation is pivotal to keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal within reach and creating an inclusive, clean energy economy.

Australia and the United States commit to enhance bilateral cooperation under a Climate, Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact (the Compact), establishing climate and clean energy as a central pillar of the Australia-United States Alliance. Australia and the United States recognise the importance of addressing the climate crisis as a critical component of the bilateral relationship.

We, the leaders of the G7, are acting and enhancing cooperation to address the climate crisis and accelerate the global clean energy transition to reach net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the Paris Agreement. We recognize that public and private investment in the industries of the future both at home and around the world will be necessary to achieve these goals and that further cooperation is necessary in order to fill the investment gap for the clean energy transition to lower the cost of the energy transition worldwide.

Yesterday, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi hosted a meeting at the White House with sustainability executives and business leaders from companies that are experiencing benefits from the President’s Investing in America agenda including the Inflation Reduction Act. At the meeting, they discussed how the Inflation Reduction Act has changed their companies’ business models to scale across the country, and how the tax credits have changed their calculus for their clean energy work.

Yesterday, the Biden-Harris Administration announced the availability of nearly $11 billion in grants and loan opportunities as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda that will help rural energy and utility providers bring affordable, reliable clean energy to their communities across the country. This USDA program represents the single largest investment in rural electrification since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act into law in 1936.