Biden Rejoins Paris Climate Accord, Works To Overturn Trump's Climate Policies

During his first moments in the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Biden returned the United States to the Paris climate accord and directed federal agencies to begin unraveling Donald Trump's environmental policies. The Washington Post reports: Biden's executive order recommitting the United States to the international struggle to slow global warming fulfilled a campaign promise and represented a stark repudiation of the 'America First' approach of Trump, who officially withdrew the nation from the Paris agreement Nov. 4 after years of disparaging it. Biden also ordered federal agencies to review scores of climate and environmental policies enacted during the Trump years and, if possible, to quickly reverse them. Nearly half of the regulations the new administration is targeting come from the Environmental Protection Agency, on issues as varied as drinking water, dangerous chemicals and gas-mileage standards.

Biden is expected to take even more sweeping action next Wednesday, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. He plans to sign an executive order elevating climate in domestic and national security policy; direct 'science and evidence based decision-making' in federal agencies; reestablish the Presidential Council of Advisers on Science and Technology and announce that U.S. data that will help underpin the Climate Leadership Summit that Biden will host in Washington in late April.
'While many of Biden's actions Wednesday will take effect over time -- the country will again formally become a party to the Paris agreement 30 days from now,' the report adds. He's also planning to rescind the presidential permit Trump granted the Keystone XL pipeline to transport crude oil from Canada across the border into the United States, and is instructing the EPA and Transportation Department to strengthen fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, which Trump weakened.

Furthermore, the report says Biden 'plans to impose a temporary moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to caribou, polar bears and Indigenous people.'

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