Biden To Move Quickly On Climate Change, Reversing Trump Rollbacks

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President Biden has vowed quick action on climate change, appointing the largest climate staff of any president.

Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images

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Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images

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The Trump administration systematically loosened Obama-era environmental standards that range from energy-efficiency standards for appliances and buildings to air quality standards designed to protect public health.

Some of those rollbacks, such as fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, went further than the industry wanted. Under President Barack Obama, automakers had negotiated efficiency standards that gradually became tougher year after year. Federal agencies under Trump instead froze the standards, leading some automakers to agree voluntarily to continue with the tougher rules.

Fuel efficiency of cars and trucks in the U.S. fell for the first time in five years in 2019, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Transportation is the country’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

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The Biden administration will also instruct the federal government to consider the long-term economic impacts of climate change when making new regulations, what’s known as the «social cost» of carbon. Under Obama, those costs were weighed against the immediate cost a new regulation might pose to an industry, given that climate impacts are increasingly costing billions across many economic sectors. The Trump administration did away with that practice in 2017. Biden is reestablishing the working group to issue those guidelines, including weighing «environmental justice and intergenerational equity» considerations.

The planned moves were applauded by environmental groups, who warn the U.S. has little time to act to cut emissions. Scientists say the world is on track to exceed 1.5 Celsius degrees of warming, which will lead to higher sea level rise and more extreme heat waves and hurricanes.

«The sweeping nature of these executive orders are an important down payment in addressing the tatters left behind by President Trump,» Kathleen Rest, executive director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. «They seek to reverse policies that fly in the face of science, harm public health and degrade the environment.»