Biden and environmental groups try to protect climate policies from Trump

Biden administration aides are racing to award hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and finalize environmental regulations in an effort to lock in President Joe Biden's climate agenda before Donald Trump enters the White House, said John Podesta, the president's senior adviser on clean energy.

Podesta, who also serves as Biden's top climate diplomat, departs Sunday for United Nations-led climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan. He said will try to reassure America's allies that the clean energy transition is unstoppable and that U.S. emissions are poised to drop even with a president who denies the science of climate change.

"There's no question that having someone leading the federal government who thinks climate change is a hoax is an impediment to accelerating action," Podesta said. But because of investments already made, U.S. emissions are on a downward trajectory, and the private sector is not backing away from renewable power, he said.

"This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet," he said. "The fight is bigger than one election or political cycle."

Trump has said he wants to erase virtually all of Biden's climate policies, which include rules intended to slash carbon emissions from power plants, automobiles and oil wells. He intends to make it easier to drill on public lands and in waters where Biden put up roadblocks. And he has called for repeal of Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

The 2022 law provides at least $390 billion over 10 years in tax breaks, grants and subsidies for wind and solar power, electric vehicle battery production and other clean energy projects. Roughly 80% of the money spent in the first two years has flowed to Republican congressional districts, making a repeal politically challenging even if Republicans win complete control of Congress.

"This is going to be a test of the resiliency of the IRA," said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a conservative research group focused on energy. "I see the president's starting position as 'We want to wipe it off the board.' But we live in the real world, and there will be a lot of interests that will look to preserve aspects of it. The ones that enjoy more bipartisan support will have a better chance of surviving."

Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., all but dared Republicans to repeal the law. "If Republican lawmakers want to follow Donald Trump off the cliff and kill 343,000 jobs nationwide, they'll be signing their own political death warrant," he said in an interview.

"Canceling electric vehicle plants in Georgia and battery factories in South Carolina is a losing strategy," Markey said. "The problem for Trump is the green revolution is blue and red."

Environmental groups said they were working together on tactics to defend the agencies that protect air, water, climate and public lands.

"I don't want to sugarcoat the conditions we face now, but I do know for certain the environmental movement was built for this moment, and we're going to do everything in our power to protect the environment and stand up for civil rights and the democracy," said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

During Trump's first term, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed 163 lawsuits against the administration as the president sought to overturn more than 100 environmental regulations, and it won nearly 90% of the cases that were resolved.

"Our track record during the first Trump administration gives us some confidence that if we're judicious about what we focus on in terms of defense, how we approach the suits and where we chose to file the cases, we will have some real success in stopping or slowing the rollbacks," Bapna said.

Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, said his organization intended to mount a "massive" public records operation to unearth Trump administration plans and documents. He also said environmental groups would scrutinize Trump's nominees and would try to block anyone who they believe would work against the mission of the agencies.

Podesta, meanwhile, offered the first glimpse into the administration's strategy for the next two months.

"We have a long to-do list," Podesta said. He said the administration had issued $98 million in climate and clean energy grants in the fiscal year that ended in September, which was 88% of the funding available for that year. The rest will be delivered before Biden leaves office, he said.

Separately, the EPA intends to obligate all of the $5 billion that Congress gave it for a Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, which goes to states, tribes and local governments that submit plans for reducing emissions. So far, 45 states have applied, with Florida, Kentucky, Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming declining to participate.

"There's still more to be awarded, and we want to allocate as much of that money as possible, making it harder for the next administration to undo that," Podesta said.

The U.S. Treasury has issued guidance for 21 of the 24 tax provisions in the climate law. By the end of this year, it will finalize the last rules detailing who can claim tax credits for hydrogen production and tax credits for any facility that generates energy without producing greenhouse gases, whether that's wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower or another source.

A handful of environmental regulations will be finalized, Podesta said. This past week, the Interior Department issued two of them: a congressionally mandated plan for leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that the Biden administration is restricting to the smallest parcels permitted by law; and a blueprint for protecting the greater sage grouse by limiting drilling, mining and livestock grazing across nearly 65 million acres of its habitat in 10 Western states. The EPA is also expected to issue restrictions on pollution from gas-fired power plants.

Alaska's Republican senators slammed the refuge drilling plan as too restrictive. "The good news is we will soon be working with a new administration that, unlike Biden-Harris, is fully committed to responsible oil and gas production," Sen. Dan Sullivan said.

Those regulations and policies are expected to be overturned by Trump. If Republicans win control of Congress, they, too, can erase regulations within 60 legislative days of when a rule was finalized.

Biden set a goal of cutting US emissions by roughly 50% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade. That's what all major economies need to do to avoid increasingly dire consequences of global warming, scientists say.

Trump intends to abandon that effort. His vision of economic growth calls for more oil and gas drilling -- which is already at record levels in the United States -- along with tariffs and tax cuts.

Still, environmental activists and Podesta insisted that most Americans did not vote for more fossil fuels.

"You'd be hard-pressed to see anything in the data that would indicate people have soured on the movement toward clean energy," Podesta said. But he said that the factories and jobs that were being created by the Inflation Reduction Act had not come online fast enough for most Americans to feel the impact.

Jealous of the Sierra Club said the environmental movement needed to do a better job of telling Americans how clean energy was creating jobs.

"We are the movement that is literally leading this country and rebuilding the manufacturing sector," he said. "Trump can't change the reality that an overwhelming majority of Americans want more clean energy, not more fossil fuels. Through investments in the Inflation Reduction Act, we are creating millions of new clean energy jobs. Clean energy is already cheaper in most cases than dirty fossil fuels, and wind and solar now generate more power in the US than coal."

He added, "Four years from now, the next presidential election, you will see a green movement that is more clear and more forceful in saying, 'We are fixing health issues in your community, and we are delivering the future of better jobs.'"

To do that, the law needs to go into full effect and stay in place, which is no sure bet.