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      Biden’s approach to climate: Calling it a crisis and treating it that way

      John Timmer · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 28 January, 2021 - 19:55 · 1 minute

    A woman speaks while a man stands behind her.

    Enlarge / National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry answer questions during a press briefing at the White House. (credit: Drew Angerer / Getty Images )

    Yesterday, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order entitled Putting the Climate Crisis at the Center of United States Foreign Policy and National Security . The document is sweeping, laying out a climate-focused agenda for the new administration and redirecting nearly every area of government to rethink its operations to bring them in line with that agenda. Targeted areas of government include everything from US diplomacy to the buildings that the government owns.

    It's difficult to overstate how large a difference this represents not only from the Trump administration, which treated climate change as if it didn't exist, but even the Obama administration, which didn't even attempt to tackle the climate until part way through its second term. Biden referred to the climate as a crisis during his campaign, and this document indicates his planned policies will actually reflect that language.

    Foreign and domestic

    Executive orders are limited in what they can do, in that they are limited by what's allowed under existing laws; they can't simply create new powers that don't exist. There's a considerable flexibility, however, in how existing laws are interpreted or which aspects of administration are emphasized. And this is perhaps truest in the area of diplomacy where, outside of treaties and sanctions, the government has extensive flexibility in terms of how it manages its relationships with other nations.

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      A look at all of Biden’s changes to energy and environmental regulations

      John Timmer · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 22 January, 2021 - 00:58 · 1 minute

    Image of a man seated at a desk with a woman standing behind him.

    Enlarge / U.S. President Joe Biden signs an executive order with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, left, looking on. (credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images )

    The series of executive orders signed by Joe Biden on his first evening in office included a heavy focus on environmental regulations. Some of the high profile actions had been signaled in advance—we're back in the Paris Agreement! The Keystone pipeline's been put on indefinite hold!

    But the suite of executive orders includes a long list that targets plenty of the changes Trump made in energy and environmental policies, many of which will have more subtle but significant effects of how the United States does business. Many of those make major changes, in some cases by eliminating policies adopted during the Trump years, a number of which we covered at the time. So, we've attempted to take a comprehensive look at Biden's actions and their potential impacts.

    Laws, rules, and policies

    Environmental and energy regulations are set through three main mechanisms. The first is by specific laws, which would require the cooperation of both houses of Congress to change. Next are also more general laws, like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. These enable regulations to be put in place via a formal rule-making process run by the agencies of the executive branch. This process involves soliciting public feedback, incorporating economic considerations, and so on, a process that typically takes anywhere from eight months to over a year. Finally, the executive branch can set policies to cover details not spelled out by the law or the rule, such as how to handle things like deadlines and enforcement details.

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