Biden Admin Implements New Climate Action In Its Final Hours
By: Desmond Price
For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I haven’t had too many nice things to say about the Biden ministration. It is an administration I was reluctant to vote for in the first place in 2020, and as the term went on, it felt like Joe Biden found more ways to not live up to the promises of his campaign, than he found ways to fight for the promises of his campaign.
For those who have been following my coverage on Gaza and Lebanon, you’ll know that I have nothing truly positive to say about Joe Biden, and what his legacy will be when he leaves the oval office in January.
With that being said, I do believe, as a person who covers politics and the news, it is very important that I also point out the positive things when I see them. I believe in being transparent, and being fair to the good news that does come out of the administration. This story falls slightly into that category. While I find it to be good news, there’s also some caveat here, but we’ll discuss that afterwards.
Biden’s EPA to charge first-ever ‘methane fee’ for emissions waste by oil and gas companies
The Biden administration has implemented the first-ever federal fee on methane emissions for oil and gas companies exceeding specific levels. The environmental protection agency announced on Tuesday.
The rule, mandated by the 2022 climate law, aims to encourage companies to cut methane admissions, a potent greenhouse gas. Starting in 2024, companies will pay $900 per ton for excess methane, with fees rising to $1500 per ton by 2026.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan emphasized that the “Waste Emissions Charge” will encourage innovation in methane reduction and reinforce the U.S. position on environmental leadership.
The rule is likely to face legal challenges from industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes the fee. API’s senior vice president, Dustin Meyer, said the organization looks forward to working with the upcoming Trump administration to repeal the regulation, calling it an obstacle to meeting America’s energy needs.
Despite opposition, the EPA estimates that the rule will eliminate 1.2 million metric tons of methane by 2035, comparable to taking nearly 8,000,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
Environmental advocates welcome to the new fee. Maggie Coulter, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, praised the EPA’s efforts to hold polluters accountable, stating that methane emissions contribute significantly to climate change. “the oil and gas companies doing so much damage to our climate should have to pay for the methane leaks. They’ve sold outrageously failed to fix,” she said, urging further moves toward reducing fossil fuel extraction.
This section was reported by - Ground News
First, let me focus on the good here.
I am all for reducing methane admissions as much as humanly possible. I also think it’s staggering that a small regulation like this, could have this staggering of an effect. An equivalent of taking 8 million gas powered cars off the road on an annual basis 👀
That’s no small thing & definitely something to be praised. Many millennials and Gen Z have been asking for climate action, again, again, and again, and this is a positive step in that direction.
I don’t claim to be a climate expert in any way, but I do know how toxic methane is for our environment. It’s something in my own personal life, that I try to combat. At our home, we signed up with a local compost company, so we could discard our food scraps more responsibly. Thankfully, it wasn’t too expensive, and my partner and I didn’t think we could compost on our own 😅
This was something that came up after learning about just how much methane is produced every year by food waste. For me, it was something I just couldn’t ignore, after learning just how much of a negative impact it was having on the planet.
So I welcome this new rule, I really do, and I think that it’s overall gonna be a great thing. Hopefully the EPA finds a way to keep it in place as Donald Trump retakes the White House.
Now I’ll address my problems
Why did they wait until now to implement this?
There is an entire generation of younger people who are incredibly passionate about the climate. This has been evident over the last three election cycles. Yet, as this administration went on, whatever gains they made with the climate, they barely ever spoke about them.
In this particular case, they waited until after the election, to do something that would’ve really helped them win the election, had they done it before hand and then promoted it.
There are so many people in this country who desperately want to see positive moves towards a sustainable future. Yet somehow, the geniuses in the administration couldn’t figure out that they should be putting out these policies before the election, and then promoting that it was done.
That is political malpractice, and I cannot understand how you could be absent minded in rolling out something like this.
This is no where near good enough
Let’s be clear about something. The Democratic Party and many figures on the left rightly pointed out that we are facing a climate emergency.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but when you’re in an emergency, very basic and minimal adjustments to laws and policies in America is not how you handle in emergency.
That’s business as usual.
That’s what you would expect when you’re not an emergency, when you’re trying to do preventative care. If you are in an emergency, you need all hands on deck to go full force after a problem. We are being told by climate scientists around the world that we are facing an emergency.
From where I’m standing, it doesn’t look like we are addressing an emergency. The Biden administration allowed for more oil and gas drilling permits on federal lands than the previous Trump administration. Does it look like an emergency?
Our previous Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, was talking about how pro-fracking she was. Did it look like an emergency when we saw nearly no investment into altering our electric grid across the country? Something we need in order to actually handle new green energy technologies.
The Biden administration cannot ask us to congratulate them on a participation trophy. This is the bare minimum of what they could do to address the climate crisis.
Now, they will tell you that their administration invested more into climate policy than anyone else has, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s not how you should be assessing success.
Rather, what do you have the power to do, and how did you use that power? If we’re in the middle of a crisis, why would comparing yourself to other administrations that didn’t care, be an acceptable barometer for success?
Given the power that you had, did you adequately address a crisis?
The answer I have for Joe Biden is, no, he did not.
I refuse to give his administration partial credit, or give them a slap on the back, for being better than people who were already terrible on this issue, that’s not the bar we’re looking for.
You had the power to do more and you chose not to. That’s how I will evaluate you, and I hope that more people will evaluate our political leaders the same way in the future.
In summary, I do think this a good move. I want to be clear about that.
With that being said, what I do not want to do is normalize meager gains and call them colossal victories.
We should expect our leaders to hear us, and act on the things that we are asking them to do. Actions that are within their power to do.
Moves like this one, should be seen as a basic action. We need to see many basic actions, coupled with truly transformative actions. That’s what I will demand from every administration.
The time for half measures is over
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