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US President Joe Biden’s environmental policy agenda is off to a running start. With a series of executive orders, Biden’s early administrative moves seek to quickly reverse years of catastrophic Trump administration anti-environment, anti-science policy, and start making up for lost ground in advancing America’s environment and climate policy progress.
Here’s a roundup of the most significant first week executive actions affecting US environment and climate policy:
Rejoining the Paris Agreement
Immediately following his inauguration, President Biden released a public statement on January 20th announcing that the United States “accept[s]” the Paris Climate Agreement and intends to rejoin. Accordingly, in 30 days the US will be back in the global accord. Biden’s administration will also have to submit revised 2030 emission reduction goals as part of America’s being readmitted to the global accord.
Former President Trump announced in 2017 that the US would exit the agreement, though it was only officially permitted to leave in November 2020, per the procedural rules of the agreement.
Cancelling the Keystone XL Pipeline Permit
In the omnibus Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis, among other orders, Biden revoked the Presidential permit issued by former President Trump in 2019 that allowed the Keystone XL pipeline’s construction to proceed.
Trump’s permitting Keystone XL’s construction was in turn a reversal of Obama administration policy. President Obama and his State Department refused to permit the pipeline’s construction in 2015 after a review found that it would not “serve the national interests of the United States."
The Keystone XL pipeline has been subject to intense and highly publicized environmental opposition in both the US and Canada since (at least) Obama’s first term. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney decried its re-cancellation as a sign of “disrespect” for Canada. In reality, Keystone’s second - and likely final - demise further demonstrates that pipelines are becoming politically, legally and financially untenable, and that fossil-dependent economies, like Alberta’s, must acclimatize to the post-oil future.
Reinstating the Social Cost of Carbon
The social cost of carbon (SCC) was a metric devised by the Obama administration and intended for government agency use in determining how much each ton of carbon would cost the United States in purely economic terms. Agencies could use the SCC in cost-benefit analyses to support, oppose or justify decisions affecting carbon emissions.
How an administration determines the actual SCC dollar amount is a somewhat complicated and controversial issue. Experts can argue the cost is set too high or low based on their own analyses. Rather than doing away with the SCC entirely, when it assumed power in 2017, the Trump administration simply adjusted the SCC to practically nothing, and it’s unclear if Trump’s agencies even bothered using that low SCC.
Biden has ordered that an interagency working group be established to revise and publish new social costs for carbon, nitrous oxide and methane emissions. Interim costs are due within 30 days of the executive order, with finalized costs to be published no later than January 2022.
Placing Moratoriums on Oil, Gas and Coal Federal Land Leases
An executive order issued by Department of the Interior acting secretary Scott de la Vega placed a 60-day moratorium on nearly all drilling and mining-related activities on federal lands. A follow-up executive order is expected to impose a year-long moratorium on new oil and gas leases for onshore and offshore federal properties. This is presumably to give the Biden administration time to revise the program for approving leases, or perhaps even place an outright ban on all oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
Biden also ordered a 60-day moratorium on oil and gas activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with the Secretary of the Interior instructed to review the applicable oil and gas leasing program’s environmental impact.
An order pledging to protect 30% of the US’s public lands and water by 2030 is also expected.
Reviewing Boundaries of Downsized National Monuments
Biden ordered a number of agencies to perform a coordinated review of several Trump administration executive orders which downsized the boundaries of national monuments such as Utah’s Bear Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, as well as The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of New England.
Both Bear Ears and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts were designated national monuments by President Obama, and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was designated by President Clinton. Presidents have authority under the Antiquities Act to designate or increase the size of national monuments. National monument lands are then accorded certain legal protections. It remains legally dubious, however, whether a president, acting without congressional approval, can decrease the size of, or undo, a former president’s national monument designations. Outdoor apparel company Patagonia famously sued former President Trump for reducing the size of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, alleging his actions were illegal.
President Biden’s executive order explicitly contemplates restoring the boundaries of the applicable national monuments to their original placements if it “would be appropriate”.
Reviewing Regulations Affecting Auto Emissions, Appliance and Building Efficiency
In Section 2 of the aforementioned omnibus executive order on climate, President Biden directs the heads of all government agencies to review agency actions occurring during the four years of the Trump administration with a review to rescinding or revising those inconsistent with the Biden administration’s current pro-climate policies. The order specifically directs agencies to review Trump administration agency actions affecting auto emission standards, appliance and building energy efficiency standards, and numerous other environmental regulatory standards.
Though not highlighted in the executive order, the recent “Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments” rule promulgated by Trump’s Department of Labor, which was seemingly aimed at hindering ESG investment by private pension funds, was the only Department of Labor rule flagged for review by Biden’s transition team. Following the rule’s proposal in June 2020, over 130 fund management and financial advisory firms wrote letters opposing it.
Buying Electric Vehicles and Clean Energy
Bloomberg Green reports that an executive order is being prepared that will require federal agencies, including the postal service, to buy clean energy vehicles and renewable energy. The total federal government vehicle fleet is reported to consist of 645,000 vehicles.
The US postal service vehicle fleet was exempted from Obama-era fuel efficiency standards. The postal service has reportedly been considering replacing its fleet of 228,000 vehicles with newer models for several years.
Creating New Environmental Justice-Focused Agency Offices
The Washington Post reports that a forthcoming executive order will create a White House interagency council on environmental justice, an office of health and climate equity at the Health and Human Services Department, and an environmental justice office in the Justice Department. The order is also expected to direct the government to spend 40% of sustainability investments on disadvantaged communities.
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If you would like to keep up with ongoing Biden administration executive and agency actions affecting the environment and climate, you can visit the Columbia University Sabin Center for Climate Law’s Climate Reregulation Tracker webpage. Until Biden’s inauguration, the Climate Reregulation Tracker webpage was the Climate Deregulation Tracker; it tracked the Trump administration's environmental deregulatory actions.