As the election approaches, Biden is pushing a range of policies on the environment and other priorities – Morning Talk

MATTHEW DALY (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trying to secure his legacy, President Joe Biden has introduced a flurry of election-year legislation on the environment and other issues, including a landmark regulation that would force coal-fired power plants to capture stack emissions or shut down.

Limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants are the Democratic president’s most ambitious effort yet to curb emissions of planet-warming pollutants from the energy sector, the nation’s second-biggest source of climate change.

The power plant regulations are among more than 60 regulations Biden and his administration finalized last month to advance policy goals, including a promise to cut climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions by roughly half by 2030. The regulations, spearheaded by the agency Environmental Protection but involving a number of other federal agencies, are being issued in quick succession as the Biden administration rushes to meet a looming but uncertain deadline to ensure they are not overturned by a new Congress or a new president.

“The Biden administration is in green lightning mode,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of the activist group Evergreen Action.

IT’S NOT JUST THE ENVIRONMENT

A policy firewall covers more than just the environment.

As the clock ticks down to Election Day, the Biden administration has issued or proposed rules on a wide range of issues, from student loan forgiveness and affordable housing to overtime pay, health care and compensation for airline passengers who are unreasonably delayed, in an attempt to win over voters in his effort for re-election against presumptive Republican Party nominee Donald Trump.

Overall, federal agencies broke records by publishing 66 significant final regulations in April, more than in any month of Biden’s presidency, according to George Washington University’s Center for Regulatory Studies. The center said more than half of the policies – 34 – were considered likely to have an economic impact of at least $200 million.

The center said this was by far the highest figure published by the last president in a single month. This was followed by 20 such regulations issued by Trump in his final month in office.

Biden is not afraid to promote principles. For example, he traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to promote his student loan relief efforts after the Supreme Court rejected his original plan. More often, cabinet officials are sent around the country, often to swing states, to promote the administration’s activities.

PROBLEM WITH RULES

Policies created through rulemaking are easier to reverse than regulations when a new administration takes office, especially in a sharply divided Congress.

“There’s no time to start like today,” Biden said on his first day in office, making the decision to dismantle Trump’s legacy.

During his presidency, Biden restored protections for endangered species that Trump had rolled back. He also raised fuel efficiency standards, reversing the former president’s position.

The Department of Education’s paid work policies target degree programs that leave graduates with high levels of debt compared to their expected earnings. The Department of Housing and Urban Development decided to reinstate a rule that was intended to eliminate racial disparities in the suburbs and was rejected by Trump.

Trump is widely expected to reverse Biden’s rules if he wins in November.

DATES ARE AVAILABLE

The Congressional Review Act allows lawmakers to rescind new laws once the executive branch has finalized them. Congressional Republicans used this once-obscure law more than a dozen times in 2017 to undo former President Barack Obama’s actions. Democrats returned the favor four years later by repealing three Trump administration rules.

The law requires a vote within 60 legislative days of the rule’s publication in the Federal Register, and that deadline depends on the length of the congressional session. Administration officials say they believe actions taken so far this year will be protected from an overhaul bill in the next Congress, although Republicans oppose almost all of them and have filed complaints that could lead to a series of votes in the House and Senate over the next year couple months.

Biden will likely veto any term repeal efforts that reach his desk before his term expires.

“The rules are safe in this Congress” given Democratic control of the Senate and the White House, said Michael Gerrard, who teaches environmental law at Columbia Law School. If Republicans take over Congress and the White House next year, “all bets are off,” Gerrard said.

CREATING LAWS TO ESTABLISH A LEGACY

In addition to the power plant regulations, the EPA has also issued separate regulations on tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks and methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. Meanwhile, the Interior Department restricted new oil and gas leases on 13 million acres of federal oil reserves in Alaska and required oil and gas companies to pay higher drilling fees on federal lands and meet stricter cleanup requirements for old or abandoned wells.

Industry groups and Republicans called Biden’s actions excessive.

“This deluge of new EPA regulations ignores the ongoing challenges our nation faces in electric reliability and represents the wrong approach at a critical time for our nation’s energy future,” said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives.

In addition to climate issues, the EPA also finalized a long-delayed ban on asbestos, a carcinogen that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, and set strict limits on some so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water. The EPA also required more than 200 chemical plants across the country to reduce emissions of toxic substances that can cause cancer, mostly in poor and minority communities that are already overburdened by industrial pollution.

Although Biden issued them recently, many actions have been planned since he took office, restoring or strengthening more than 100 environmental regulations that Trump weakened or eliminated.

The legislation comes two years after Democrats approved a sweeping bill to support clean energy that is widely considered the most important climate legislation ever introduced.

Taken together, Democrats say Biden’s climate bill and executive actions could strengthen his standing among climate-minded voters — including young people who helped Biden take office four years ago — and help him fend off Trump in a likely rematch in November.

“Every community in this country deserves to breathe clean air and drink clean water,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “We promised to listen to people suffering from pollution and take action to protect them.”

“CHALLENGING TIMES”

In addition to votes in Congress, these rules are likely to face legal challenges from industry and Republican-led states, including several lawsuits that have already been filed.

“Part of our strategy is to make sure that we understand the current judicial culture that we live in and to make sure that every action, every rule, every policy is more sustainable and as correct as possible,” Regan said at a conference organized by conservation journalists environment last month.

But all executive branch actions are loomed over by the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 conservative majority increasingly limits the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA. A landmark 2022 ruling limited the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming, and a separate ruling weakened regulations protecting millions of acres of wetlands.

The case before the court could put a hold on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “Good Neighbor” plan to combat air pollution while court proceedings continue.

“We live in challenging times in many ways, but at EPA we remain focused on the mission,” Regan said at an April conference. “And then we’ll actually have to defend this case in court.”

Rules issued by other agencies also face legal challenges.

Republican-led states are challenging the administration’s new Title IX rules that provide expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students and new protections for victims of sexual assault. They are also suing to repeal a rule requiring background checks on buyers at gun shows and in places outside stores.

Gerrard, the Columbia law professor, said the threat of executive action being overturned by Congress or the courts “makes it difficult for either side to gain momentum.” This uncertainty also makes it difficult for the industry to comply with regulations because it is unsure how long the regulations will remain in force.

KEEPING POWER FOR THE CLIMATE?

Gerrard and other experts said the climate bill and bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021 are more lasting and will make it harder for the next president to relax. The two bills, combined with action by the executive branch, will put the country on track to meet Biden’s goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, environmentalists say.

The climate bill, which includes spending nearly $400 billion to boost clean energy, will have a ripple effect on the economy for years to come, said Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former Obama administration official.

She dismissed complaints from industry and Republicans that the power plant rule is a continuation of the Obama-era “war on coal.”

“This is an attack on pollution,” she said, adding that fossil fuels like coal and oil are subject to the Clean Air Act “and need to be cleaned up.”

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the 2022 Supreme Court challenge, said the EPA is in line with what he called Biden’s “Green New Deal” agenda.

“Unelected bureaucrats continue to seek to legislate rather than rely on elected members of Congress for guidance,” said Morrisey, who is the state’s GOP candidate for governor.