Recently, a portion of the congressional budget bill saw the removal of swathes of climate change policy and law proposals. This put the Biden administration on the defensive with its own base, with many calling for immediate executive actions to deal with this. Biden has said he plans to head in this direction, which many in his party are already accusing of falling short (though he has yet to have actually mentioned what these orders might entail).
Regardless, amid ever rising inflation and another executive power grab through the use of the emergency powers act, it seem that the economy and the bulk of America is bound to suffer more. Executive actions are nothing new of course, and have been used by presidents across the aisle for decades; however, this particular order that would regard climate change as a national emergency, does concern a majority struggling Americans, across the aisle themselves.
With higher gas and energy costs, amid a heat wave and drought, it seems practically unlikely that further regulation and executive restriction on the very life blood of the economy will yield any positive results. Additionally, no one can say what exact goal would be, and what results are likely for the environment. Perhaps a tenth of a degree in Celsius reduced, in about a hundred years, maybe two degrees? That seems unlikely to be enough to ask Americans to continue the way they have. And this would still likely require global cooperation.
Any executive order on environment regulations produced en masse on Americans, would still require heavy adherence from completive countries such as China, Russia, Mexico, India and others to even have that type of affect – an extremely unlikely event. Irony to this, is that the US has been decreasing its environmental and fuel footprint, by outsourcing to those very countries its energy needs, which is a part of why it is experiencing such severe inflation today.
Though Biden has not, as of the writing of this piece, made any such executive action, his recent rhetoric is definitely heading that direction, and he has declared intent to use emergency executive actions.
With inflation the worst it has been in nearly 40 years, and the cost of fuel, food, and machinery still rising, this type of action does not seem like a practical or good idea. Americans need NOW to cool their homes and fuel their economy. And where does energy come from? It comes from all the industries being threatened with even more over regulation.
There is a constitutional issue with this as well, because emergency executive actions were never meant to handle long-term problems, they are meant to be used in actual emergencies. But again, presidents from across parties have abused these types of actions, and used them to circumvent the legislative process.
Recent polls say that nearly 95% of Americans are concerned with inflation, and more than 70% of Americans disapprove of the Biden’s approach at handling it, this talk of emergency executive actions regarding climate change seems like a massive misstep and failure to read the room from the Biden administration. With Americans suffering now, it seems unreasonable to push them down this path.
