Climate change activists and experts are calling on the Biden administration to swiftly deploy a series of executive actions to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels now that Republicans are set to retake control of the House.
Biden, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit meeting in Indonesia, Nov. 14. creating an interagency plan
Collectively, these regulations would increase the cost of operating coal-fired power plants, which activists say could hasten energy utilities’ transition to cleaner alternatives such as wind and solar power. But in order for new regulations to take effect before Biden leaves office, they must be announced soon.
In June, the EPA was brushed back by the Supreme Court on power plant regulation when the court’s conservative majority ruled in West Virginia v.
Activists say that the Biden administration would defend its regulatory record by noting that the first two years of the president’s tenure have been marked by undoing the policies adopted under Trump, who opposed action to address climate change.
“I think it’s going to be difficult for them to speed up the process, because the regulatory process is very challenging to speed up,” said Frank Maisano, a partner in the policy resolution group at Bracewell, a law and lobbying firm that represents energy companies. “If you don’t follow the benchmarks of the administrative procedure, you basically open yourself up to a challenge, which there certainly will be.
Then there’s the always-contentious question of whether the federal government should be selling new leases for oil and gas drilling on federal land and waters. Biden pledged in his 2020 campaign to end the practice, but he has been forced to restart it by a federal court ruling, and — to win the crucial support of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. — the Inflation Reduction Act also mandated a certain amount of new leasing moving forward.
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