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Melissa Harris-Perry: It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. On Wednesday, President Biden visited Somerset, Massachusetts and what used to be the largest fossil fuel burning power plant in New England. In front of the shuttered Brayton Power Point station, which will soon be a factory for cables needed to support the burgeoning offshore wind industry, Biden announced new executive orders that will direct funding to mitigating the effects of climate change.
President Biden: Today, I'm making the largest investment ever, $2.3 billion to help communities across the country build infrastructure that's designed to withstand the full range of disasters we've been seen up to today, extreme heat, drought, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes.
Melissa Harris-Perry: All right, so this move comes as West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin continues to obstruct legislative efforts on climate action. It comes in the midst of a week of record high temperatures and heat waves across both the US and Europe, but environmental groups have been urging Biden to go further than executive actions by invoking a national climate emergency.
They say this would empower the administration to take even more substantial steps against climate change. To help us think this all through, I'm joined by Jean Su, the Energy Justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Jean, thanks for being here.
Jean Su: Thanks for having me, Melissa.
Melissa Harris-Perry: So 2.3 billion to help communities across the country to withstand climate change. Can you walk us through some of the specifics of that here?
Jean Su: Sure. 2.3 billion is being added, which is a historical increase in the amount to FEMA. The idea behind that amount is that they're going to help set up new cooling centers for communities as well as increase air conditioning.
Overall, those are positive steps that so many communities need right now across the country, but unfortunately, that step and the other announcements that we heard yesterday are woefully inadequate to address the incredible climate emergency that people here as well as all across the world are facing right now, in terms of wildfires, record heat waves, and devastating hurricanes.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I want to be careful not to flatten this too much, so stop me if I'm wrong on this, but it does feel like the notion of setting up cooling centers or air conditioning in the context of a warming planet, it does sound like the classic Band-Aid on a massive wound kind of metaphor. Aren't air conditioners ultimately bad for our long term climate question?
Jean Su: Absolutely. We have a situation where we have a Band-Aid on a hemorrhaging piece of your body where blood is completely spilling out. A Band-Aid cannot at all even deal with it. Absolutely, air conditioners are a part of what we need right now for very quick turnaround of helping people cool down during these emergency situations. The fact of the matter is that our fossil fuel economy, the fact that we're burning natural gas, coal, all of that is at the root of why we are in this emergency right now.
Turning off that spigot is part of a greater plan that President Biden absolutely needs to put in place right now to start combating the climate emergency on the scale that it's necessary to do.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, to the extent that these actions are relatively more short term, how soon are communities going to start feeling the effects of this 2.3 billion in investment?
Jean Su: The Biden administration has not been particularly fast in how their agencies are doling out the different actions that they're doing, and that's another big problem. A climate emergency declaration would actually light the fire under all the agencies to act with the speed and urgency that we need right now. I'm not sure how long it will take FEMA. I am guessing at least a couple of months to get this up and running, and that's just simply unacceptable at this time.
We need to be not taking baby steps. We actually need to be taking leaps in this sprint and in this race.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I could hear the doomsday clock ticking in my ears as you were saying, "We need to be taking these big leaps rather than these small steps." Where are we on the dooms day clock right now and basically, what we know is likely to happen? What is the best case scenario for, I don't know, the planet at this point?
Jean Su: Melissa, we're in really bad shape and that's really clear for everybody around the world experiencing palpably, what the climate emergency really is. The fact of the matter is that it's nothing new. Communities around the world, especially poor communities and poor communities in the United States, have been feeling the heat waves, the unapproachable hurricanes, the wildfires for decades now actually, and it's only now that people in the United States and in Europe are feeling it more than others.
The other side of this coin is that we don't have the luxury to not do anything. I think going on a doomsday reality check is important because we're recognizing and acknowledging that we have serious problems, but the next step to that is not to give up. It's actually to handle it and face it head on. Interestingly enough, President Biden, for the first time yesterday, acknowledged the fact that we are in a climate emergency.
What we need right now is for him to actually act with that fact in mind and the deliberate speed with the incredible actions that he has at his fingertips to make substantial climate progress.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Walk me through what some of those very specific actions could be. What is it that the president has the power to do?
Jean Su: The president has a really robust set of executive tools. One of the unfortunate parts about the president so far is that he hasn't been willing to use those tools since he has come into his presidency. In a lot of ways, we've seen a president who has leaned on his Senate background and really waited on the legislature to do things. The real strategic move should have been from the very beginning to not only focus on legislation, which is critical, but to also focus on your executive powers and make these climate steps right now.
As part of his really large bucket of tools or his toolbox, he can do a bunch of things on the renewable energy side and on the fossil fuel side. On the renewable energy side, he can unlock his emergency powers, which can redistribute things like military funds to actually go not towards the military, but towards building out our renewable energy system.
He can also unlock further funds for FEMA to stop building back with fossil fuel plants and diesel generators, but instead direct that money towards real solutions like rooftop and community solar. He can also start manufacturing the electric vehicles, the ebuses, the charging stations that we need to wean off of our oil, which is devastating the country right now. On the other side of the coin, what has been totally ignored by this administration and Congress is dealing with our fossil fuel problem.
The only way that we can actually tackle fossil fuels is to stop the oil and the gas at the spigot. Emergency powers for the president and his ordinary powers would allow him to stop new oil and gas leasing. It would also make him stop approving the pipelines, the horrific oil and gas projects that are already poisoning so many communities here in the United States.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Why do you think he didn't?
Jean Su: It is absurd that we are at this moment in time where people are suffering right before our eyes and we are suffering as well. Everybody is, yet we have a president who has issued new oil and gas leases at a rate that was higher than the Trump administration. I think we have a situation where our politicians are still captured by the fossil fuel industry. That is completely clear, but unfortunately, the bucks has to stop somewhere and we need President Biden to be that climate president.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Jean Su, Energy Justice Director at the Center for Biological Diversity and the co-author of the report, The Climate President's Emergency Powers. Thank you for being here.
Jean Su: Thank you for having me, Melissa.
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