President Biden on Monday announced $7 billion in subsidies for solar power projects, seeking to draw a contrast with Republicans who want to roll back climate change policy.
In a speech in Prince William Forest, Virginia, Biden said money from his signature climate and energy law, the Inflation Control Act, will help provide solar power to hundreds of thousands of homes in disadvantaged areas. Said it was helpful.
Earlier in the week, Biden promoted environmental policy, saying, “Despite the overwhelming devastation we’re seeing in red and blue states, there are still people who deny that we have a climate crisis.” Government officials said they plan to roll it out across the country. “Our MAGA Republican friends don’t seem to think this is a crisis.”
He also said the American Climate Corps, a new workforce for those who want to fight climate change, will create thousands of jobs for future generations.
Biden’s Earth Day event comes as he seeks to energize young voters, many of whom are disillusioned with the 2024 candidates and furious with the administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Biden tried to find a compromise Monday when talking about the unrest on college campuses. Asked if he would condemn “anti-Semitic protesters,” Biden said, “I condemn anti-Semitic protesters.” Moreover, he added, “I also blame those who do not understand what is happening to the Palestinians.”
Mr. Biden leads his Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, among young voters, with many praising his record on environmental issues compared to Mr. Trump. But Biden’s lead is smaller than it was at this point in the 2020 election cycle, according to a Harvard Youth Poll released last week.
Another poll conducted in October found that only 31% of voters under 30 said they were “satisfied” with Biden’s record on climate change.
Daniel Deisseroth, executive director of left-leaning research firm Data for Progress, said Biden could use his climate efforts to shore up support among younger voters.
“The bigger concern is not necessarily that young voters will vote for Trump en masse. They’re staying home,” Deiseroth said. “That’s where climate change plays an important role. It provides a kind of energization and it also scares young people into voting.”
Biden faces a messaging problem with the Inflation Control Act, his most important climate policy to date. The bill included hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to help companies switch to lower-carbon power sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power. It also includes billions of dollars in incentives for people to buy electric cars and electric heat pumps for their homes.
The law, signed into law in 2022, is already having a ripple effect, with companies across the U.S. announcing plans for more than 150 factories to make electric cars, batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. Last year, sales of electric cars and the installation of large-scale solar power plants both hit record highs.
But polls show that few Americans know about this law.
One potential problem is that many of the outcomes of the Climate Change Act are not yet fully visible. Companies have announced more than $100 billion in new manufacturing investments in states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, but many of those factories are not yet operational.
Some environmentalists are trying to tout the law’s effectiveness. The liberal advocacy group Climate Power ran an election-year ad to contrast Biden’s legislative accomplishments with Trump’s actions, which ridicule climate science and promise to roll back clean energy programs. The plan is to invest $80 million.
Other climate change activists have harshly criticized Biden for not doing enough to reduce fossil fuel drilling in the United States. U.S. oil and gas production hit a record high last year. Many activists point to Biden’s approval of Willow, an $8 billion oil drilling project on pristine federal land in Alaska, as well as a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia that environmentalists oppose. Anger focuses on the federal recognition of .
“President Biden has taken historic action on climate change and has done more than any president in history to combat the climate crisis, but unfortunately the bar is very low.” said Stevie O’Hanlon. Young climate activists. “If Joe Biden wants to be seen by young voters as a climate president, he needs to take decisive action to end the fossil fuel era.”
Biden has taken a series of steps in recent months to try to slow domestic fossil fuel production. In January, the government announced it was suspending approvals for new terminals to export liquefied natural gas while the matter was further investigated. The Department of the Interior announced this month that it would ban oil drilling on roughly 13 million acres of Alaska’s North Slope.
lisa friedman Contributed to the report.
