WASHINGTON (Nexstar) — President Biden signed sweeping executive orders on Wednesday to address the climate change crisis.
But there are concerns the plan will cost Americans jobs and too much money, with an overall price tag of $2 trillion. But Biden’s new climate team disputes those claims.
Biden said Americans are impacted by more severe wildfires, droughts and hurricanes because of climate change.
“The Defense Department reported that climate change is a direct threat to more than two-thirds of the military’s operational critical installations,” Biden said. “We’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis.”
The president announced big changes to help transition the country to clean energy and lower emissions, and his administration’s plan will also focus on low-income communities where high emissions increase asthma and cancer rates.
“It creates both a White House interagency task force to address environmental justice as well as an advisory council,” said National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy. “It direct the Department of Health and Human Services to create an Office of Climate Change and Healthy Equity.”
Some question whether the plan will cost too much money and cut too many jobs in the oil and gas industry. The Biden team’s plan will transition the workforce to the clean energy sector.
“Workers have been fed a false narrative, no surprise, for the last few years,” said John Kerry, the first-everen US International Climate Envoy. “They’ve been fed the notion that somehow dealing with climate is coming at their expense. No, it’s not.”
Kerry also said paying for the negative impacts of climate change will ultimately cost more than trying to fix it.