WORLDFIRE - Chapter 9, Part VI

Climate of Denial

In Chapter 9, “Climate of Denial,” we will be exploring various expressions of climate denial: 1) Fossil Fuel Industry Denial, 2) Republican Party Denial, 3) Democratic Party Denial, 4) Barack Obama’s Denial (included because he was president during my 2010 ride), 5) Donald Trump’s Denial, 6) Joe Biden’s Denial, and 7) Distraction as Denial. I have made every effort to be nonpartisan in my analysis. I hope you’ll stick with me through all seven parts - irrespective of your political views - as we objectively explore how best to dismantle these forms of destructive denial. Thank you.

Joe Biden’s Denial

Joe Biden’s climate denial is a much subtler form than that of his predecessors. President Biden can rightfully lay claim to the most proactive climate agenda of any U.S. president by far, but Joe Biden, like his former boss, is also displaying signs of climate schizophrenia. Biden’s presidency got off to a good start by undoing a number of Trump’s destructive regulatory rollbacks; rejoining the Paris accord; driving a stake into the heart of the northern leg of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline; blocking oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge; setting a goal of conserving 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030; setting a goal of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030; setting a goal of 100% carbon-free electricity for the U.S. by 2035; setting a U.S. goal of 50% of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in 2030 being zero emissions vehicles; directing the EPA to slash the production and use of climate-destroying refrigerants; and pausing new fossil fuel leasing on federal lands, only to then turn around and greenlight more oil and gas drilling leases than Trump approved during his first two years in office. Biden launched a very positive initiative to accelerate the deployment of offshore wind projects, but again only after approving the largest offshore drilling auction in U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico, site of America’s worst oil spill. In a vain bid to boost Saudi oil production, President Biden even fist-bumped the Saudi crown prince who the CIA concluded had ordered the brutal assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In a similar contradictory vein, shortly after his inspired selection of Deb Haaland to be the first Native American Secretary of the Interior, Biden formally declared his administration’s commitment to honoring tribal sovereignty, only to then refuse to shut down the climate-destabilizing Dakota Access, Line 3, and Line 5 oil pipelines, all of which blatantly violate Native American treaty rights. After spearheading an international initiative to cut global methane emissions, the Biden administration then turned around and not only actively backed the Mountain Valley methane pipeline project, but fought to open a national forest to methane fracking. There’s more. Biden also locked in 30 more years of drilling in Alaska by approving the massive ConocoPhillips Willow project, one day after announcing drilling restrictions in other parts of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve and in the Arctic Ocean. Then he allowed the National Environmental Policy Act to be undermined, weakening the review process for new oil and gas projects. It’s enough to give you whiplash. The end result is we are not on track to meet the lofty climate goals set by the Biden administration. Nor are we transitioning away from oil. Under President Biden, U.S. oil production has soared to levels eclipsing even Trump’s record levels.

President Biden has nonetheless succeeded in advancing climate policies in ways no other president has ever done, even if many of those initiatives are schizoid in nature. Early in his administration, the president got some very significant climate initiatives through Congress with the passage of his 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These included large investments in passenger rail and public transit; building a national network of electric vehicle charging stations; replacing diesel school buses with electric buses; modernizing the electricity grid to facilitate more renewables; expanding the domestic manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles and the electricity grid; expanding the Weatherization Assistance Program for low-income families; reclaiming abandoned mines; capping orphaned methane gas wells; and making America’s infrastructure more climate resilient. It made other major climate-related investments as well. The law also provided funds to clean up toxic Superfund sites and expanded access to clean drinking water by funding the removal of toxic lead pipes. In stark contrast to Donald Trump, who only talked big about rebuilding America’s infrastructure, Joe Biden delivered the goods. It is notable that this bill passed with some Republican support–no small feat in today’s hyper-polarized political climate–but the congressional horse trading required for passage effectively kneecapped its climate gains with destructive trade-offs like exempting oil and gas pipelines on federal lands from environmental review; weakening the review process for other infrastructure projects; mandating large-scale logging of national forests; and subsidizing woody biomass power plants, carbon capture and storage schemes, methane gas fueling stations, radioactive nuclear power plants, and believe it or not, the construction of a carbon dioxide pipeline network.

In 2022, Biden advanced more positive climate initiatives with the passage of The CHIPS Act, a $280 billion law best known for revitalizing America’s semiconductor industry. Less talked about is how it also dedicates tens of billions of dollars to accelerating the research and development of emergent green energy technologies, including funding a new Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships to help facilitate this R&D. The law also authorizes billions for upgrading facilities at mission-critical federal agencies like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This bill, like the infrastructure law, also passed with some Republican support.

Biden took his biggest climate swing with his 2021 Build Back Better Plan. Envisioned as the largest U.S. public investment in social, infrastructure, and climate programs since the New Deal, Build Back Better eventually morphed into the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, with some of the plan’s climate elements incorporated into the aforementioned Infrastructure Law and CHIPS Act. The most aggressive version of Build Back Better was a $6 trillion package advanced by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Then the congressional sausage-making process began, whittling that $6 trillion down to $3.5 trillion, then shrinking it further to $2.2 trillion, which included $555 billion for climate-related initiatives. Unable to get this version of the bill through Congress, despite Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, Biden eventually got a watered down version of the bill passed called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). While a far cry from a Green New Deal, $369 billion in climate-related spending nevertheless made the IRA the most ambitious climate investment in U.S. history. Regrettably, corralling the vote of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), at the time the oil and gas industry’s highest paid congressional servant, required dangerously costly concessions to the fossil fuel industry that mandated increased fossil fuel production, making the overall impact of the final bill a decidedly mixed bag.

On the plus side, the 10-year law makes a historic commitment to climate action through a combination of grants, loans, tax incentives, rebates, and other government investments designed to spur private investments in green energy; bolster supply chains; generate jobs; and make energy more affordable. President Biden promised an industrial rebirth and he is delivering on that promise. The new law supports the domestic manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and batteries. It incentivizes the purchase of electric vehicles and the installation of solar, wind, geothermal, and batteries. It lowers the cost of energy efficiency retrofits and energy efficient appliances like heat pumps. It supports rural farmers, small business owners, and rural electric cooperatives in developing renewable energy projects. It supports the powering of tribal homes with renewable energy systems. It invests in agricultural conservation practices to increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce methane emissions. It invests in coastal resilience, conservation, and restoration. It invests in new transmission infrastructure and grid energy storage. It invests in retrofitting cement plants and steel refineries to reduce their carbon emissions. It funds the U.S. Postal Service to purchase zero emissions vehicles and the associated charging infrastructure. It funds the EPA to regulate pollution from power plants. It permanently funds the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund for coal miners. It protects near-port communities from diesel pollution by funding the electrification of ports. It supports the Superfund law by reinstating (and raising) the excise tax on the oil industry. It fines polluters by imposing a fee on methane emissions that exceed federal limits. It creates a National Green Bank to fund zero emissions technologies and projects. It assists disadvantaged communities most at risk from climate disasters. It does other good things as well. This law would never have been proposed, let alone passed, without the tireless work of climate youth who paved the way by pushing for a Green New Deal.

But lest you get too excited, there’s also a grimy underside to the shiny IRA coin. On the minus side, the new law schizophrenically requires more federal oil and gas lease sales as a prerequisite for developing renewable energy projects. It included a mandate that four previously cancelled offshore oil lease sales–three in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska–be allowed to move forward. It opened the floodgates for the Biden administration to auction off 73 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for drilling. It funds impractical, unaffordable, and unproven-at-scale carbon capture and storage schemes. It pours more taxpayer dollars down the nuclear power drain. And it provides $47 billion (not $60 billion as advertised) to alleviate pollution in low-income neighborhoods, communities of color, and tribal communities, only to then counterproductively undercut that support by locking in even more deadly fossil fuel pollution of some of these same vulnerable communities. It misses the mark in a number of other ways as well.

Nevertheless, when stacked up against decades of government climate inaction, the IRA, on balance, marks a significant step forward. But compared to what we need, it’s not even close. In catering to the fossil fuel industry, the law falls dangerously short of the all-hands-on-deck climate emergency response the climate emergency demands–one requiring trillions, not billions, in federal investments–and it provides too little climate justice for too many communities already suffering climate injustices. In that sense at least, Joe Biden and many in his party remain in denial about the true urgency of the emergency we face. This obviously pales in comparison to GOP denial (not a single Republican member of the House or Senate, for instance, voted for the IRA). But protecting the future of life on Earth requires breaking the stranglehold of the fossil fuel lobby.

The first hint that President Biden might actually be willing take on Big Oil came in early 2024 when his administration announced a temporarily pause on approving any new LNG (liquid natural gas) export terminals [which should be called LMG (liquid methane gas) terminals]. This was a historic first step in stemming the destructive climate and human health impacts of toxic LMG facilities, but the federal pause does not slow down existing U.S. LMG exports, nor does it affect existing LMG terminals or those previously approved or under construction. Another positive climate step Biden took in 2024 was to require existing coal plants that want to continue operating past 2039 to reduce 90% of their carbon pollution by 2032. This was preceded by Biden’s EPA requiring tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks to be cut roughly in half by 2032, even if the emissions cuts are weaker, and will occur more gradually, than the EPA originally proposed.

In fairness to President Biden, like Obama before him, Biden also inherited a huge mess upon taking office, in this case a raging pandemic, mass economic dislocation, and a nation traumatized by four years of gaslighting by Donald Trump. Guided by his humanity and compassion, Joe Biden helped right our foundering ship of state by restoring a mature sense of normalcy to the presidency. But the closer you look at the Biden administration, the more you see how much of it is Obama redux. While there is something to be said for leaning on steady hands in shaky times, in the face of a climate emergency, the price of this beltway experience is far too high to pay. What we most need right now are fresh faces with fresh ideas (many of them are profiled in this book). Instead, we’re saddled with the albatross of the same old players and stale approaches that got us into this climate mess in the first place.

Take John Kerry, who served as Obama’s Secretary of State and is now Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Kerry wants us to believe big corporations and the private sector are what will win the climate war. He even went so far as to publicly praise as a “terrific choice” the appointment of the CEO of a state-run oil company to chair the 28^th UN Conference of the Parties (COP28), as if the idea of an oil baron presiding over international climate negotiations wasn’t preposterous on its face. Kerry also showed the administration’s hand when he told the BBC “50% of the reductions we have to make to get to net zero by 2050 or 2045… are going to come from technologies we don’t yet have.” By ignoring the fact that the U.S. already possesses the know-how to get to zero emissions, what Kerry is really doing is using the vague promise of nonexistent future technologies riding to the rescue as an excuse to let the polluters keep on polluting. This approach is not only stale. It’s suicidal.

Take Tom Vilsack, first Obama’s and now Biden’s Secretary of Agriculture. In 2022, Secretary Vilsack gave the organic farming movement a shot of adrenaline when the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a $300 million initiative to strengthen organic markets and help U.S. farmers wanting to transition to organic farming. Sounds pretty good, right? Until you learn that Vilsack has also teamed up with the petrostate United Arab Emirates to push a corporate international agenda of agritech (e.g. biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, robotics, and artificial intelligence) to expand industrial agriculture under the deceptively named Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate. $300 million for climate-calming organics is nothing compared to the $13 billion already raised to promote this climate-destabilizing agenda. Secretary Vilsack is also a booster of the logging and woody biomass (aka, “clearcuts for kilowatts” schemes) industries. Big Oil, Big Agriculture, and Big Timber are not the solution. They’re the problem.

Consider these words spoken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he rolled out the second phase of his administration’s bold New Deal in 1936: “Powerful influences… consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.” Weigh these words wielded by President Abraham Lincoln in the final push to win congressional support for the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery: “The abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come.” Commanding his congressional emissaries to find the votes needed to secure its passage, Lincoln thundered: “I am President of the United States, clothed with immense power, and I expect you to procure those votes.” There is a reason why history honors Roosevelt and Lincoln. Great presidents possess the courage of their convictions. Great presidents alter the course of history. A great president would declare a climate emergency and wield the immense power at their command to comprehensively address this existential threat.

Winning the climate war hinges on such fierce presidential leadership, backed by a courageous Congress and fired by an aroused citizenry. Big Oil’s death grip on the power structure must be broken. In the age of climate consequences, only by wielding his executive powers to rein in the fossil fuel industry can Joe Biden ever hope to be honored by history. He must not only be willing to incur the wrath of the titans of industry; he must welcome their hatred. Instead, he is promoting pacifying policies they love him for, like more oil drilling, like carbon capture and storage schemes that don’t really store carbon, like pipelines and projects to export methane gas, and like the dangerous distraction of “geoengineering,” all ploys designed to delay for decades the fossil fuel phase-out we desperately need now. President Biden’s may be a subtler form of denial than that of his predecessors, but the end result is the same: the rapid unraveling of life on Earth as we know it. Unless we change course, and do it soon, the endgame is the violent and chaotic breakdown of a functioning society. I am not blind to how huge of a lift this would be for Joe Biden, but given the stakes, it leaves me wondering, does Biden really not get what is happening? Or does he simply lack the resolve?

NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.