On Wednesday, President Biden launched his $2 trillion environmental plan, “a Green New Deal-like initiative aimed at putting ‘climate change at the center of our domestic, national security and foreign policy,'” the New York Post reported.
Speaking at the White House, Biden stated, “Today is climate day at the White House, which means that today is jobs day at the White House. … In my view, we’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis; we can’t wait any longer. We see it with our own eyes, we feel it, we know it in our bones, and it’s time to act.”
Biden promised union members millions of jobs: “When I think of climate change and the answers to it, I think of jobs. A key plank of our build back better recovery plan is building a modern, resilient climate infrastructure and clean energy future that will create millions of good-paying union jobs — not seven, eight, 10, $12 an hour, but prevailing wage and benefits.”
Another promise — one million new jobs in the automobile industry: “With today’s executive order, combined with the Buy American executive order I signed on Monday, we’re going to harness the purchasing power of the federal government to buy clean, zero emission vehicles that are made and sourced by union workers right here in America. With everything I just mentioned, this’ll mean one million new jobs in the American automobile industry, one million.”
Another promise: “And we’ll do another thing. We’ll take steps towards my goal of achieving 100% carbon pollution-free electric sector by 2035.”
A promise of half a million charging stations for electric cars: “We see these workers building new buildings, installing 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations across the country as we modernize our highway system to adapt to the changes that have already taken place.”
Biden spoke of a “racial wealth gap”: “I’m going to build 1.5 million new energy efficient homes and public housing units that are going to benefit communities three times over. One, by alleviating the affordable housing crisis, two, by increasing energy efficiency, and three, by reducing the racial wealth gap linked to home ownership.”
Oh, and more jobs: “We’re also going to create more than a quarter million jobs to do things like plug the millions of abandoned oil and gas wells that pose an ongoing threat to the health and safety of our communities.”
He said he truly cared about the men and women he might put out of work: “We’re never going to forget the men and women who dug the coal and built the nation. We’re going to do right by them.”
But then there was this: “Today’s executive order also directs the secretary of the interior to stop issuing new oil and gas leases on public lands and offshore waters, wherever possible.”
Back to racial issues: “With this executive order, environmental justice will be at the center of all we do, addressing the disproportionate health and environmental and economic impacts on communities of color, so-called fence line communities, especially those communities, Brown, Black, Native American, poor whites.”
Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia’s Republican attorney general, said on Fox News on Wednesday: “What we’re seeing in the first week of the Biden administration is that the president is really taking a wrecking ball to many of the states that have oil, gas, coal, manufacturing jobs — that’s gonna have a real detrimental impact, especially as the American economy is coming out of COVID-19, a pandemic,” adding, “Biden is going much further” than former President Barack Obama, and concluding, “I think he’s really kicking the American people when they’re down economically and it’s not a message of unity that he’s been talking about.”
Dan Naatz of the Independent Petroleum Association of America said: “Do not be fooled, this is a ban [on drilling]. … The Biden administration’s plan to obliterate the jobs of American oil and gas explorers and producers has been on clear display …”