In President Biden’s $5.8 trillion budget request for fiscal year 2023, made public on Monday, it includes nearly $45 billion for several federal agencies to tackle climate change. It seeks to prepare us for the reality of life on a hotter planet. It does not include big-ticket items to enable the United States to pivot away from the combustion of fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change. The budget says little about what the federal government will do to actually address the nation’s two largest contributors to climate change: greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and power plants. What the United States does swiftly to bring down its own emissions is critical for the rest of the world. Biden is trying to make good on a promise he made to help poorer countries expand renewable energy and adapt to the effects of warming with $11.4 billion in annual climate finance by 2024. The budget creates a new office within the Department of Justice to look into how environmental risks disproportionately affect communities of color. The largest chunk of the $142 billion for transportation would be used to fix roads and bridges 15 percent of the transportation budget would go toward mass transit. Oil and gas drilling on public lands will continue.
By Somini Sengupta. New York Times. March 29, 2022.
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