Summary
- Greta Thunberg testified at a House subcommittee hearing on the need to end federal subsidies for fossil fuels. The 18-year-old climate activist implored lawmakers to “listen to and act on the science and to use your common sense”. “We, the young people, are the ones who are going to write about you in the history books,” Thunberg said. “So my advice for you is to choose wisely.”
- Joe Biden announced a goal to cut US greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The president laid out the new goal in his introductory remarks at the start of a two-day virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders. “No nation can solve this crisis on our own,” Biden said. “All of us, all of us, and particularly those of us who represent the world’s largest economies, have to step up.”
- John Kerry said Donald Trump’s climate policies had “destroyed” America’s credibility on the world stage. Kerry, the president’s special envoy for climate, also criticized Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate agreement “without any facts, without any science, without any rationale that would be considered reasonable”.
- The House passed a bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st US state. The vote of 216 to 208 fell exactly along party lines. The DC statehood bill now heads to the Senate, where Democrats do not currently have the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster of the legislation.
- The Senate passed an anti-Asian hate crimes bill, in a vote of 94 to 1. The bill, which would create a new justice department position to expedite the review of hate crime reports and provide support to state and local officials responding to hate crimes, is expected to pass the House as well.
- The Transportation Department announced it will withdraw from Trump-era rule that blocked states from setting their own tailpipe emission standards. The Trump-era rule came amid the growing rift between California and the former administration on environmental standards. Now Biden’s EPA administrator, Michael Regan, says the administration will also propose new nationwide standards for tailpipe emissions this summer.
– Joan E Greve and Maanvi Singh
Updated
Swirling and meandering ocean currents that help shape the world’s climate have gone through a “global-scale reorganisation” over the past three decades, according to new research.
The amount of energy in these ocean currents, which can be from 10km to 100km across and are known as eddies, has increased, having as yet unknown affects on the ocean’s ability to lock-away carbon dioxide and heat from fossil fuel burning.
One expert said the changes described in the research could affect the ability of the Southern Ocean, one of the world’s biggest natural carbon stores, to absorb CO2.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, analysed the temperature and height of the ocean with the help of data from altimeters on satellites from 1993 until 2020.
Like clouds and storms in the atmosphere, eddies are like weather events in the oceans happening from the surface down to a depth of several hundreds metres. The research found that eddies were intensifying in places where they are known to be most active.
As well as detecting changes in the Southern Ocean, the research also found changes in the southern Atlantic and the East Australian Current.
They found a significant increase in eddy strength over the Southern Ocean, as well as significant changes in their activity over the boundary currents – the intense flows of water along the boundaries of the major ocean basins, such as the Gulf Stream and the East Australian Current.
Lead researcher Josué Martínez Moreno, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and Australian National University, said the eddies were constantly merging and detaching from more permanent ocean currents.
The eddies played a “profound role” in moving heat, carbon and nutrients through the ocean and regulating the climate at regional and global scales, the research said.
Martínez Moreno said the research had revealed “a global-scale reorganisation of the ocean’s energy over the past three decades”.
The paper did not attempt to attribute the changes to human activity, but Martínez Moreno said they could have far-reaching effects on the world’s climate, and also on fisheries.
Read more:
Opinion: Joe Biden’s billions won’t stop Bolsonaro destroying the Amazon rainforest
Marina Silva (Brazil’s minister for the environment, 2003-8) and Rubens Ricupero (minister for the environment, 1993-4) write:
As a candidate, Joe Biden built up the world’s hopes when he committed the US to rejoining the Paris agreement, confronting the climate denialism of his opponent and signalling that he was ready to treat the climate crisis as a strategic priority. So far, that hope has become certainty – and relief for those of us who are striving to find structural and global solutions to the crisis.
For the Brazilian government, presided over by the climate change sceptic Jair Bolsonaro, the promise to rejoin the Paris accords sounded like a threat, even more so because it was followed by a promise made during one of the debates to mobilise $20bn (£14bn) in international funds for tropical rainforests – including for Brazil – to stop the destruction of the Amazon. Bolsonaro reacted by calling the plans “coward threats”.
Last year, Biden may not have been fully aware of the extent to which the current Brazilian government has transformed Brazil into an environmental pariah, the world’s greatest destroyer of tropical forests and the foremost threat to the planet’s already precarious climate equilibrium. By now, as Biden’s climate summit gets under way, he will have been fully informed and repeatedly warned of the risk of making deals that could strengthen Bolsonaro’s government and allow it to further advance its destructive policies.
Still, the Biden administration, along with ministers from Britain and Europe, has in recent weeks been negotiating a deal with the Brazilian government. For all the talk of cowardly threats, Bolsonaro’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, is asking for a yearly instalment of $1bn – in return for which, he says, Brazil’s forest clearance would be reduced by between 30% and 40%. There are concerns that some of these funds could be channelled to the very land-grabbers who are behind the destruction of the Amazon.
Our warning is based on the following fact: deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is not the result of a lack of money, but a consequence of the government’s deliberate failure of care.
Read more:
Updated
Pipeline tells Black Memphis landowners: sell us the rights to your land or get sued
Leanna First-Arai for the Guardian, and Carrington Tatum for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism:
The only things Karmen Johnson-Tutwiler has left to remind her of her mother are a few photographs and just under a quarter acre of land covered in bramble and wildflowers that backs up to a railroad track. When her mother, Sharon Watson, died in 2010, she and her sister inherited it. “She always told me it was important to have a piece of property as your own,” Johnson-Tutwiler said.
While visiting as a child, Johnson-Tutwiler coasted on bikes down hilly roads alongside the property, passing a few modest houses and land where residents grew fruit and vegetables to feed their families. The land is on the edge of a neighborhood called Boxtown, a community built by formerly enslaved people and annexed by the city of Memphis during the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, residents of the neighborhood, which is 99% Black, had to organize to demand the city extend essential services to it, such as water lines, indoor plumbing and bus routes. Like other neighborhoods in south-west Memphis, Boxtown is surrounded by industrial facilities, including a Valero oil refinery.
Since February 2020, the Byhalia Pipeline, a joint venture of Valero and Plains All American Pipeline, has been trying to gain control of part of Johnson-Tutwiler’s land, which is along the route of the proposed 49-mile Byhalia Connection oil pipeline. The route would run through multiple majority-Black neighborhoods in south-west Memphis, and researchers and activists say a spill could threaten the city’s public water source: an aquifer the size of Lake Michigan.
Johnson-Tutwiler does not currently reside on the stretch of land the company wants – .08 of an acre temporarily and .11 of an acre permanently – but it would prevent her or other family members from ever building a house. “That was the only thing that I had that my mom left with us that we could pass down through the lines of the family,” she said.
The legal battle over the proposed pipeline has become a flashpoint in a national conversation about environmental justice and eminent domain, a right of the government to seize private property for public use, which is increasingly being used by oil and gas companies to take private land.
Johnson-Tutwiler and her sister are among at least 10 south-west Memphis families who have already lost or stand to lose some property rights to Byhalia Pipeline. The company has been trying to buy easements, or rights to pieces of property, from Shelby county landowners since 2020. If they refuse, the company has been taking them to court using eminent domain, a power embedded in the fifth amendment and conferred to states through the fourteenth amendment. The federal government and states have allowed energy companies, including oil and gas pipeline builders, to use it for more than 100 years; since fracking was commercialized in 2007, fossil fuel companies have used it more often to build projects including the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines.
On 14 May, a circuit court judge will hear oral arguments from Byhalia Connection, and their opponents, to determine whether any crude oil pipeline developer, including Byhalia Pipeline, has the right to exercise the power of eminent domain under Tennessee law.
It will be the first decision of its kind to be made in a Tennessee court, said Scott Crosby, an attorney representing the landowners, and the outcome could set legal precedent. Legal scholars and activists argue the continued use of eminent domain for fossil fuel development – a power granted by federal law for natural gas pipelines that cross state lines but at the state level for oil pipelines and energy plants – is due for reform amid climate and racial justice crises.
Read more:
Updated
The Transportation Department announced it will withdraw from Trump-era rule that blocked states from setting their own tailpipe emission standards.
The Trump-era rule came amid the growing rift between California and the former administration on environmental standards. California had long set tougher car emissions standards than those required by the federal government and had, along with 22 other states, had sued the Trump administration over its decision to revoke the authority of states to set such standards.
Biden’s EPA administrator, Michael Regan, has also said the administration will propose new nationwide standards for tailpipe emissions this summer.
Updated
Trump delayed $20bn in aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, report finds
Coral Murphy Marcos in San Juan reports:
The Trump administration delayed more than $20bn in hurricane relief aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, according to a report by the housing department’s office of the inspector General.
The efforts to deliver recovery funding to the island were “unnecessarily delayed by bureaucratic obstacles”, according to the 46-page report. The hurricane, which hit the island in 2017, killed thousands of people and left thousands more without electricity or water for months.
One of the main hurdles was the requirement imposed by the Office of Management and Budget, which established an interagency review before grant approvals, according to a report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud). The process, which was never before required for allocating disaster funds, prevented Hud from publishing its draft notice of funding by the target date.
The investigators were unable to determine why the extra layer of review was required due “denials of access and refusals to cooperate”, according to the report.
The inspector general’s office conducted 31 interviews of 20 current and former Hud officials and two now-former Puerto Rico department of housing senior officials to write the report. However, investigators did not have access to the former Hud secretary Ben Carson and other political officials. The investigators were also denied or delayed access to Hud information on several occasions.
The report found that Hud’s review and approval of their funding action plan for Puerto Rico was delayed due to the 2018-2019 government shutdown.
“Staffing shortages due to the shutdown and miscommunications between HUD and the Puerto Rico Department of Housing pertaining to the grantee’s bank information delayed PRDOH’s ability to access grant funds until several days after the shutdown ended,” reads the document.
The office of the inspector general investigation also said that both the former Hud secretary and former Hud assistant secretary Brian Montgomery expressed “mounting concerns and frustrations” to the then OMB director, Russell Vought, about Hud’s “inability” to expedite the release of funds.
The report was conducted after a request from representatives Nydia Velázquez, Bennie Thompson, and Raúl Grijalva to investigate several allegations that had been reported in a January 2019 Washington Post article related to the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program (CDBG-DR) funds appropriated for Puerto Rico.
Read more:
Arizona Republicans to begin auditing 2020 ballots in effort to undermine election results
Nearly five months after Joe Biden was declared the official winner of the presidential race in Arizona, state Republicans are set to begin their own audit of millions of ballots, an unprecedented move many see as a thinly-veiled effort to continue to undermine confidence in the 2020 election results.
The GOP-controlled state senate ordered the audit, set to formally get underway this week, which may be one of the most absurd and alarming consequences to date of Donald Trump’s baseless lies about the 2020 election. It will be executed by a private Florida-based company. It also reportedly will be supported from far-right lawyer Lin Wood and observers from the far-right news network One America News Network.
The audit will be solely focused on Maricopa county, the largest in the state and home to a majority of Arizona’s voters. Biden narrowly defeated Trump in the county, a crucial battleground that helped the president win Arizona by around 10,000 votes. The audit will include a hand recount of all 2.1m ballots cast in the county, a process expected to take months.
Trump and allies have claimed, without evidence, there was fraud in Maricopa county. But the county has already conducted two separate audits of the 2020 election and found no irregularities. The Republican decision to continue to investigate the results, months after they were certified by both county and state officials, extends the life of election conspiracy theories. The audit also comes as Arizona Republicans are advancing legislation in the state that would make it harder to vote by mail.
“They’re trying to find something that we know doesn’t exist,” said Arizona secretary of state Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, who serves as the state’s top election official. “It’s ludicrous that people think that if they don’t like the results they can just come in and tear them apart.”
David Becker, an election administration expert and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the effort was so shoddy he was hesitant to acknowledge it as a legitimate investigation.
Read more:
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina will be delivering the Republican response to Biden’s address to Congress next week.
Scott, the only Black Republican senator, who is leading the party’s efforts to enact police reform, will have a big opportunity to take the national stage. Biden plans to address a joint session Congress on 28 April - speaking to both chambers all together for the first time since taking office.
Honored to have this opportunity. I’m as confident as I’ve ever been in the promise and potential of America and look forward to sharing my vision for our nation with all of you. https://t.co/M6Pt8kQEuB
— Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) April 22, 2021
Updated
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague Maanvi Singh will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Greta Thunberg testified at a House subcommittee hearing on the need to end federal subsidies for fossil fuels. The 18-year-old climate activist implored lawmakers to “listen to and act on the science and to use your common sense”. “We, the young people, are the ones who are going to write about you in the history books,” Thunberg said. “So my advice for you is to choose wisely.”
- Joe Biden announced a goal to cut US greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The president laid out the new goal in his introductory remarks at the start of a two-day virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders. “No nation can solve this crisis on our own,” Biden said. “All of us, all of us, and particularly those of us who represent the world’s largest economies, have to step up.”
- John Kerry said Donald Trump’s climate policies had “destroyed” America’s credibility on the world stage. Kerry, the president’s special envoy for climate, also criticized Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate agreement “without any facts, without any science, without any rationale that would be considered reasonable”.
- The House passed a bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st US state. The vote of 216 to 208 fell exactly along party lines. The DC statehood bill now heads to the Senate, where Democrats do not currently have the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster of the legislation.
- The Senate passed an anti-Asian hate crimes bill, in a vote of 94 to 1. The bill, which would create a new justice department position to expedite review of hate crime reports and provide support to state and local officials responding to hate crimes, is expected to pass the House as well.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
The US goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, will take the world closer to the reductions scientists say are necessary to hold global heating within scientifically advised limits, analysis has shown.
The target, announced on Thursday before a virtual summit of more than 40 world leaders hosted by the US president, Joe Biden, would result in emissions reductions of between 1.5 and 2.4 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year by 2030, compared with the US’s current expected emissions, according to Climate Action Tracker.
This is the strongest contribution yet made by any major economy, in terms of the amount of carbon to be cut, towards meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement of holding global heating well below 2C. However, the target is not sufficient to meet the more ambitious aspiration of the Paris agreement of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
To be in line with a 1.5C temperature rise, the US would need to cut emissions by 57-63% below 2005 levels, said Climate Action Tracker.
Senate passes anti-Asian hate crimes bill
The Senate has passed the anti-Asian hate crimes bill in a vote of 94 to 1, after Democrat Mazie Hirono worked with some of her Republican colleagues to ensure bipartisan support for the legislation.
Josh Hawley, a Republican of Missouri, was the only senator to vote against the bill. Five others -- Republicans Marsha Blackburn, Mike Lee and Rand Paul and Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith -- did not vote.
(Klobuchar and Smith were both in their home state of Minnesota to attend the funeral of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by Brooklyn Center police earlier this month.)
Passed, 94-1: Cal. #13, S.937, COVID-19 Hate Crimes, as amended. (60 vote affirmative threshold)
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) April 22, 2021
The bill now heads to the Democratic-controlled House, where it is expected to pass. Joe Biden has also signaled he will sign the bill once it reaches his desk.
The legislation would create a new justice department position to more quickly review hate crime reports linked to the coronavirus pandemic and provide support to state and local officials responding to hate crimes.
The Senate passage of the bill comes amid an increase in reports of hate crimes among Asian Americans. The shooting at three spas in Atlanta last month also killed eight people, including six Asian women, intensifying calls to address this alarming trend.
“This long overdue bill sends two messages. To our Asian-American friends, we will not tolerate bigotry against you,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said. “And to those perpetrating anti-Asian bigotry, we will pursue you to the fullest extent of the law.”
Jen Psaki was asked to confirm reports that Joe Biden will propose raising taxes on wealthy investors to help fund childcare and education programs.
The White House press secretary said she did not want to get ahead of the president, adding that Biden will lay out his $1.5tn American Family Plan when he addresses Congress next week.
The New York Times has details on the administration’s plans, which remain in flux:
The second phase centers on what administration officials call ‘human infrastructure.’ It will spend hundreds of billions of dollars each on universal pre-kindergarten, expanded subsidies for child care, a national paid leave program for workers and free community college tuition for all.
It also seeks to extend through 2025 an expanded tax credit for parents — which is essentially a monthly payment from the government for most families — that was created on a temporary basis by the $1.9 trillion economic aid package Mr. Biden signed into law last month. ...
To offset that cost, Mr. Biden will propose several tax increases he included in his campaign’s ‘Build Back Better’ agenda. That starts with raising the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent, the level it was cut to by President Donald J. Trump’s tax overhaul in 2017. Mr. Biden would also raise taxes on capital gains — the proceeds of selling an asset like a stock or a boat — for people earning more than $1 million, effectively increasing the rate they pay on that income to 39.6 percent from 20 percent.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has now returned to the podium to continue the daily briefing.
A reporter asked Psaki why Joe Biden believes federal money should be spent on building electric car charging stations when senior advisers like John Kerry argue the market is going to move in that direction anyway.
Psaki responded that the president believes there is a role for the government to play in encouraging the production of environment-friendly products and creating jobs in the process.
John Kerry was pressed on climate activists’ complaints that Joe Biden’s commitments are not enough to halt the destruction of climate change.
“Is it enough? No. But it’s the best we can do today and prove we can begin to move,” the president’s special envoy for climate told reporters.
Kerry was speaking hours after 18-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg testified before a House oversight subcommittee on the need to end federal subsidies for fossil fuel companies.
“Unlike you, my generation will not give up without a fight,” Thunberg told lawmakers. “And to be honest, I don’t believe for a second that you will actually do this.”
John Kerry dismissed a question on whether he was concerned about Republican opposition to Joe Biden’s climate proposals.
The president’s special envoy for climate noted that many policies can be implemented through executive orders, combined with cooperation from the private sector.
Kerry argued there were economic advantages to building a green economy, saying the job market is going to be “gigantic” as the US works to ramp up its renewable energy sources.
The former secretary of state also used the electric car company Tesla as an example of how companies can financially benefit by building environment-friendly products.
“The market is sending signals. The consumer is sending signals,” Kerry said.
John Kerry: Trump's policies 'destroyed' America's credibility on world stage
John Kerry, Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate, said Donald Trump’s policies “destroyed” America’s credibility on the world stage when it comes to addressing climate change.
The former secretary of state noted that today, which is Earth Day, marks five years since he signed the Paris climate agreement in New York, with his granddaughter on his knee.
“Regrettably, without any facts, without any science, without any rationale that would be considered reasonable, the former president decided to pull out,” Kerry said.
The senior presidential adviser pledged that Biden would take active steps to confront climate change and to rebuild America’s credibility with its foreign allies.
Updated
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing with reporters.
Psaki is joined today by John Kerry, Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate, and Gina McCarthy, the president’s national climate adviser.
The briefing comes as Biden kicks off a two-day virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders at the White House.
Making a pitch for the president’s $2tn infrastructure plan, McCarthy said the proposal would help the US to “grow our economy and to reduce our emissions”.
Observers of the US and China this week may ponder whether a joint call to tackle the climate crisis marks a positive change in their fraught relationship, as the two leaders meet for the first time since Joe Biden was sworn into office.
After four years of Donald Trump, the bilateral relationship has reached its lowest ebb since formal ties were established in January 1979. In both capitals, fear of a “new cold war” is on the rise. Many highlight growing competition, and the opposing nature of the two countries’ political systems.
Biden has so-far shown no sign of changing course on his China policy. Compared with his predecessor his tone may appear more discreet, but the war of words between top American and Chinese diplomats last month in Alaska offered a glimpse at the tensions beneath the surface. This may be a preview of what’s to come in the years ahead.
Yet the US and China issued a joint pledge following the US climate envoy, John Kerry’s visit to Shanghai last week.
And on Thursday China’s president, Xi Jinping, will attend a virtual US-led climate change summit at Biden’s invitation, leaving observers of the bilateral relationship with much to interpret and decode.
'Best medication against anger and anxiety is to take action yourself' – Thunberg
Greta Thunberg more or less had the last word at the congressional environmental hearing - at least the last meaningful word.
California Democratic congresswoman Katie Porter asked the Swedish activist what she should tell her nine-year-old daughter who comes to her fretting that “Earth is on fire and we’re all going to die soon”?
That’s like Throwback Thursday for Boomers who grew up amid the Cold War and US-USSR nuclear missile arms race, watching as the adults in charge willfully hurtled towards imminent catastrophe...
So Thunberg finished the Earth Day hearing with another strand to her admonish-hope-galvanize proverbial lifeline for the grown ups.
“I know that there are many young people who feel angry and sad because of all the things that some people are doing to to this planet.
“That’s very understandable. It would be strange if we didn’t feel that way, because then we wouldn’t have any empathy.. And if we choose to take action.. there’s unlimited things that we can do.. There are no limits to what we can accomplish.
“And of all ways, the best medication against anger and anxiety is to take action yourself. So that’s what I would tell her - to take action herself because that will make her feel so much better.”
Katie Porter asks Greta Thunberg what to tell her 9yo daughter, who told Porter "the earth is on fire and we're all going to die soon."
— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) April 22, 2021
Thunberg: "I know that there are many young people who feel angry and sad because of all the things that some people are doing to to this planet
Committee chair Ro Khanna wrapped up the hearing moments later.
Updated
California Democrat Katie Porter just tore into leading oil and gas lobbying boss Frank Macchiarola at the congressional committee hearing on the climate emergency.
She indicated she was confident that, somewhere in the labyrinth, government fossil fuel subsidies - alias taxpayer money - end up fueling his salary.
“Why do I have to pay for you to shill for oil companies?” Porter asked.
She continued: “We taxpayers subsidize the oil and gas industry, we did it this year during a pandemic” via some $15bn in pandemic relief alone, while the industry spent a quarter of a billion dollars on lobbying and political donations (mostly to Republicans).
Macchiarola is the senior vice president for policy for the American Petroleum Institute, the largest US trade association for US oil and natural gas companies, representing around 600 corporations.
When he sought to contradict her, Porter hit the gas and plowed right on through him, in her characteristic succinct but no-nonsense style.
“You drill in the Arctic refuge. That’s bad enough why should taxpayers have to subsidize that activity? That’s a bridge too far,” Porter said, citing “pollution, hurting wildlife” and damaging the planet as a result of that industry’s activities.
Macchiarola began: “Thank you for the question, I...”
Porter cut into his lane: “That’s not a question, that’s a fact.”
Updated
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Greta Thunberg testified at a House subcommittee hearing on the need to end federal subsidies for fossil fuels. The 18-year-old climate activist implored lawmakers to “listen to and act on the science and to use your common sense”. “We, the young people, are the ones who are going to write about you in the history books,” Thunberg said. “So my advice for you is to choose wisely.”
- Joe Biden announced a goal to cut US greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The president laid out the new goal in his introductory remarks at the start of a two-day virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders. “No nation can solve this crisis on our own,” Biden said. “All of us, all of us, and particularly those of us who represent the world’s largest economies, have to step up.”
- The House passed a bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st US state. The vote of 216 to 208 fell exactly along party lines. The DC statehood bill now heads to the Senate, where Democrats do not currently have the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster of the legislation.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer applauded the House’s passage of a bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st US state.
“This is about democracy. It’s about self-government. It’s about voting rights,” the Democratic leader said on Twitter.
The House just passed the bill to grant D.C. official statehood.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) April 22, 2021
This is about democracy. It’s about self-government. It’s about voting rights.
I was proud to re-introduce this bill in the Senate, and we are working to make #DCStatehood a reality.
But Schumer did not offer a specific timeline on when the Senate may vote on the bill, instead simply saying senators are “working to make #DCStatehood a reality”.
As of now, Democrats do not have the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster of the legislation. They would need to convince 10 of their Republican colleagues to support the bill in order to break a filibuster.
House passes DC statehood bill in party-line vote
The House has passed the bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st US state, in a vote of 216 to 208.
The vote fell exactly along party lines, as expected, with all House Democrats supporting the bill and securing its passage.
The House passed H.R. 51 - Washington, D.C. Admission Act by a vote of 216-208. https://t.co/GuQ9giezhD
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) April 22, 2021
The bill now heads to the evenly divided Senate, where it faces an uphill climb due to Republicans’ ability to filibuster the legislation. Republicans have criticized the proposal as a Democratic “power grab”.
However, the bill’s passage in the House and the possibility of a Senate vote still represent progress for those who have been fighting for DC statehood for decades.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate who represents DC in the House, has been advocating for statehood since she arrived in Congress in the 1990’s. She celebrated today’s House vote as a step toward addressing the injustice of taxation without representation for DC residents.
“This Congress, with Democrats controlling the House, the Senate and the White House, DC statehood is within reach for the first time in history,” Norton said.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi emphasized the importance of passing the DC statehood bill during her weekly press conference this morning.
The Democratic speaker said DC statehood is “in her DNA,” noting her father served as the chair of the District of Columbia appropriations subcommittee.
.@SpeakerPelosi: "District of Columbia statehood in my DNA...This is a picture of my father and the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt...he had a hearing as the Chair of the District of Columbia Appropriations Subcommittee...he was known as the unofficial mayor of Washington." pic.twitter.com/MsE2Kp5ogl
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 22, 2021
Pelosi shared a photo of her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr, with Eleanor Roosevelt during his first hearing as chairman of the DC appropriations subcommittee.
The speaker noted her father was known as “the unofficial mayor of Washington” because of the amount of power he held over DC as the subcommittee chairman.
“He did not support that. He was all for home rule and what would come after that,” Pelosi said.
House holds vote on DC statehood bill
The House oversight subcommittee on environment is currently taking a short break in its hearing on fossil fuel subsidies to address some technical difficulties.
Meanwhile, the House has started voting on the bill to make DC the 51st US state, which is expected to pass.
The blog will have more updates on the hearing and the vote coming up, so stay tuned.
The House is voting NOW on passage of H.R. 51 - Washington, D.C. Admission Act. https://t.co/SDQO15ong0
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) April 22, 2021
Updated
Greta Thunberg emphasized that her generation will take action to confront climate change if those currently in power refuse to do so.
The 18-year-old activist said lawmakers will have to answer to their children if they do not take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as by ending federal subsidies for fossil fuels.
“Unlike you, my generation will not give up without a fight,” Thunberg said. “And to be honest, I don’t believe for a second that you will actually do this.”
She added, “We, the young people, are the ones who are going to write about you in the history books. We are the ones who get to decide how you will be remembered. So my advice for you is to choose wisely.”
Greta Thunberg also warned the House members of the oversight subcommittee that they will not always be able to escape scrutiny for the US climate change response.
Greta Thunberg asks lawmakers: "How long do you think you can continue to ignore the climate crisis … without being held accountable?" pic.twitter.com/P7Y9GpCjkz
— The Recount (@therecount) April 22, 2021
“How long do you honestly believe that people in power like you will get away with it?” the climate activist said in her opening remarks to the subcommittee.
“How long do you think you can continue to ignore the climate crisis, the global aspect of equity and historic emissions, without being held accountable?”
Thunberg added, “You get away with it now, but sooner or later people are going to realize what you have been doing all this time.”
Thunberg testifies at House hearing: Fossil fuel subsidies are 'a disgrace'
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg just delivered her opening remarks at the House oversight subcommittee hearing on fossil fuel subsidies.
Thunberg noted that she is not a scientist, but she said the climate science showing the need to lower greenhouse gas emissions speaks for itself.
Climate activist @GretaThunberg delivers blistering Congressional testimony on #EarthDay
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 22, 2021
"All I can do is to urge you to listen...and to use your common sense...The fact we're still having this discussion...is a clear proof we have not understood the climate emergency at all." pic.twitter.com/WH8lj6jyYw
“All I can do is to urge you to listen to and act on the science and to use your common sense,” Thunberg said.
The climate activist argued it was outrageous that politicians are still debating, in the year 2021, whether to end federal subsidies for fossil fuels, which she described as “a disgrace”.
The continued existence of fossil fuel subsidies is “clear proof that we have not understood the climate emergency at all,” Thunberg said.
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Joseph Aldy, a professor at Harvard University, is the first expert to deliver testimony at the House subcommittee hearing on fossil fuels.
“Fossil fuel subsidies represent a government failure,” Aldy said in his opening remarks.
The professor argued the subsidies provide a financial boost to fossil fuel companies that directly contribute to pollution and climate change, meaning the government is incentivizing the companies’ harmful behavior.
“The first step towards a more effective, modern energy policy should be to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies,” Aldy said.
House subcommittee holds hearing on fossil fuels with Thunberg
The House oversight subcommittee on environment has now started its hearing on ending federal subsidies for fossil fuel companies, which will include testimony from climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Congressman Ro Khanna, the Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, said such subsidies contribute to climate change. They are “outdated and need to go,” the California congressman said.
Previewing Thunberg’s testimony, Khanna said the young activist will explain why ending these subsidies is “absolutely essential to the leadership of the world”.
The hearing comes as Joe Biden begins a two-day virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders at the White House.
Speaking at the White House climate summit this morning, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed relief that the US is once again working to confront climate change.
“I’m delighted to see that the United States is back, is back to work together with us in climate politics because there can be no doubt about the world needing your contribution if we really want to fulfill our ambitious goals,” Merkel said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she’s “delighted to see that the United States is back, is back to work together with us in climate politics.” pic.twitter.com/Tt0ufW8n1M
— The Recount (@therecount) April 22, 2021
During his presidency, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement and generally dismissed or downplayed the need to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Joe Biden, however, has pledged to make combating climate change a key focus of his administration and work toward cutting US emissions in half by 2030.
Joe Biden issued a proclamation this morning formally declaring today to be Earth Day in the US.
“On April 22, 1970, millions of Americans rallied together to protect the right of all of us to live free from environmental hazard and harm. On that first Earth Day, they gathered all across America -- on college campuses, in public parks, and State capitals -- galvanized by a vision of a healthier, more prosperous Nation where all people could thrive,” the president said in his proclamation.
“Their untiring spirit sparked a national movement for environmental protection that endures today in the bedrock laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and treasured wild places and wildlife.”
This Earth Day, I’m proud to say science is back.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 22, 2021
Biden noted the importance of Earth Day has never been more profound, given that the US and countries around the world are now seeing the effects of climate change in the form of record-setting temperatures and devastating natural disasters.
“More than 50 years ago, a generation rallied to confront the environmental crises they faced,” Biden said. “They took action in hopes that those in power would listen. Today, a new generation is sounding the alarm louder than ever, demanding that world leaders act. It is in all our interests to rise to that challenge and let our legacy be one of action.”
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Congressman Ro Khanna, the Democratic chairman of the House oversight subcommittee on environment, said this morning’s hearing with Greta Thunberg would focus on specific policy changes the US can make to curb the use of fossil fuels.
“We appreciate that President Biden ran on ending fossil fuel subsidies. But the details matter,” Khanna said in a statement. “Exactly four months into this administration, progressives are looking for tangible and specific commitments from the Administration to follow through on its own platform.”
Khanna specifically suggested repealing the deduction for intangible drilling costs and repealing the corporate tax exemption for fossil fuel master limited partnership (MLPs), among other proposals.
Khanna noted the fossil fuel industry received up to $15 billion in annual federal subsidies during Donald Trump’s presidency, and the progressive congressman implored Joe Biden to take action to end that funding.
“President Biden and his staff should listen to the countless activists, both here at home and around the world, who are imploring him to pass an infrastructure plan without those same subsidies and take action,” Khanna said. “Obviously we need more, but Biden didn’t run on the Green New Deal, he ran on ending fossil fuel subsidies. We haven’t forgotten and hope he hasn’t either.”
Developing countries are increasingly concerned that their need for financial assistance to cope with the climate crisis will go unmet, as leaders of the world’s biggest economies meet for a virtual White House summit on the climate.
Joe Biden, the US president, is hosting more than 40 world leaders virtually over the next two days to discuss ways of fulfilling the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and to encourage leading economies to bring forward plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade.
Such plans will be crucial to limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with scientific advice. But alongside these pledges, developing countries are seeking strong new commitments on another crucial area: climate finance, the flow of money from public and private sector sources in the rich world to help the poor world reduce emissions and cope with the intensifying impacts of extreme weather.
Lidy Nacpil, coordinator at the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, said: “We are at a point where we know what needs to be done to reverse the climate chaos and it boils down to this simple principle: wealthier countries, who emit more now and historically, can and should do more with their emissions reductions and delivery of climate finance.”
Biden at climate summit: 'No nation can solve this crisis on our own'
Joe Biden delivered some introductory remarks for the climate summit this morning, when he formally announced the new US goal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
“The United States sets out on the road to cut greenhouse gases in half by the end of this decade. That’s where we are headed as a nation,” the US president said.
Pres. Joe Biden announces goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions:
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 22, 2021
"The United States sets out on the road to cut greenhouse gases in half by the end of this decade. That's where we are headed as a nation."https://t.co/Qr0gVnZNHR pic.twitter.com/hmIgaWRYr1
Biden noted the two-day virtual climate summit is “bringing together leaders from around the world to meet this moment of climate peril and extraordinary opportunity”.
The president emphasized that the climate change response would only be successful if it is a global endeavor.
“No nation can solve this crisis on our own,” Biden said. “All of us, all of us, and particularly those of us who represent the world’s largest economies, have to step up.”
US vows to cut its emissions at least 50% by 2030 ahead of climate summit
The US has vowed to cut its planet-heating emissions by at least half by the end of the decade, in a ramping up of ambition aimed at rallying other countries to do more to confront the climate crisis.
Ahead of a virtual gathering of dozens of world leaders in a climate summit called by Joe Biden, which begins on Thursday, the White House said the US will aim to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by between 50% and 52% by 2030, based on 2005 levels.
This new target, to be formally submitted to the United Nations, represents a stark break from the climate denialist presidency of Donald Trump and will “unmistakably communicate that the United States is back”, according to a White House official who was briefed on the emissions goal. “The United States isn’t going to wait, the costs of delay are too great and our nation is resolved to act right now,” the administration official added.
The US is scrambling to regain international credibility after Trump pulled the country out of the Paris climate agreement. But the Biden administration said it has already helped secure improved emissions reductions from Canada, Argentina and Japan, meaning that, along with new pledges by countries such as the UK, governments that oversee half of the global economy have targets consistent with stopping the planet’s average temperature from rising above 1.5C, a key Paris goal to avoid disastrous climate impacts.
Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg to testify before Congress
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Greta Thunberg, the 18-year-old climate activist from Sweden, is scheduled to virtually testify before the House oversight committee’s subcommittee on the environment today.
The hearing, which comes on Earth Day, is entitled The Role of Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Preventing Action on the Climate Crisis.
“This hearing will discuss the dire health and economic impacts of fossil fuel subsidies and why the current administration and the rest of the international community should fulfill their commitments to repeal fossil fuel subsidies,” the subcommittee said in a statement last week about the hearing.
Thunberg has repeatedly criticized countries for not doing enough to confront climate change, and the activist has described government subsidies for fossil fuels as “madness”.
The hearing also comes as Joe Biden kicks off a two-day virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders, so much of the testimony from Thunberg and other activists at the hearing will likely be directly aimed at the US president and his foreign counterparts.
The hearing will get under way in about an hour, so stay tuned.
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