Good afternoon , everybody . I know the
press has just had a long , uh ,
session with the team here about what
we're talking about today and this
afternoon . And let me just start by
saying I can't tell you how much I
appreciate the three people standing
next to me here for what they've agreed
to do to help , particularly my best
buddy , John Kerry . Asking a former
secretary of state to come back and do
this has been a as I know , there's a
big ask on the part of myself . I was
gonna I was gonna blame common for it
as well , but for both of us and , uh ,
but , uh , John's been deeply involved .
The sector has been deeply involved in
climate issues as a senator and one of
the leaders legislatively as well on .
I don't think anybody knows more about
the issue . And the damage has been
done by some of the executive orders of
previous administration . And , Jean ,
you've run everything . Thank you very
much . Let me get to it . Today is
Climate day at the White House , and
which means that today is jobs day at
the White House . We're talking about
American innovation American products ,
American labor . We're talking about
the health of our families and cleaner
water , cleaner air and , uh , cleaner
communities . We're talking about
national security , America leading the
world in a clean energy future . It's a
future of enormous hope and opportunity .
It's about coming to the moment to deal
with this maximum threat that we exit
where that's now facing us climate
change with a greater sense of urgency .
In my view , we've already waited too
long to deal with this climate crisis .
We can't wait any longer . We see it
with our own eyes . We feel it . We
know it in our bones and it's time to
act . I might snow parenthetically , if
you notice the attitude of the American
people toward greater impetus on
focusing on climate change and doing
something about it has increased across
the board . Democrat , Republican
independent . It's That's why I'm
signing today . An executive order to
supercharger administration Ambitious
plan to confront the existential threat
of climate change is an existential
threat . Last year , wildfires burned
more than 5000 acres in the West , as
no one knows better than the vice
president , former senator from
California Um area , roughly the size
of the entire state of New Jersey Mawr .
Intense and powerful hurricanes ,
tropical storms pummel states across
the Gulf Coast and along the East Coast .
I can testify to that from Delaware .
Historic FLOODS Severe droughts have
ravaged the Midwest Mawr . Americans
see and feel the devastation in big
cities , small towns , coastlines and
in farmlands and red states and blue
states . And the Defense Department
reported that climate change is a
direct threat to Mawr than two thirds
of the military's operational critical
installations . Two thirds . And so
this week we could . This could well be
on the conservative side , and many
climate and health calamities are
colliding all at once . It's not just
the pandemic that keeps people inside
its poor air quality . Multiple studies
have shown that air pollution is
associated with an increased risk of
death from Cove in 19 . And just like
we need a unified national response to
Cova 19 , we desperately need a unified
national response to the climate crisis
because there is a climate crisis we
must keep . We must lead global
response because neither challenge can
be met . As Secretary Kerry's pointed
out many times by the United States
alone , we know what to do . We just
got to do it . When we think of climate
change , we think of it . This is a
case where conscious and convenience
cross paths We're dealing with this
existential threat to the planet and
increasing our economic growth and
prosperity are one and the same . When
I think of climate change , I think of
the and the answers to it . I think of
jobs . A key plank of our build back .
Better recovery plan is building a
modern , resilient climate ,
infrastructure and clean energy future
that will create millions of good
paying union jobs . Not 78 10 $12
an hour . But prevailing wage and
benefits . You know , we can put
millions Americans the work modernizing
our water systems , transportation ,
our energy infrastructure to withstand
the impacts of extreme climate . We've
already reached the point where we're
gonna have to live with what it is now
that's going to require a lot of work
all by itself , without getting any
worse . We think of renewable energy .
We see American manufacturing ,
American workers racing toe , lead the
global market . We see farmers making
American agriculture first in the world
to achieve net zero emissions and
gaining new sources of income in the
process on , I wanna parenthetically
thank the secretary of agriculture for
helping to put together that program .
During the campaign , we see small
business and Master Electrician's
designing , installing and innovating
energy conserving technologies and
building homes and buildings . And
we're gonna reduce electric consumption
and save hundreds of thousands of
dollars a year and energy costs in the
process . And when the previous
administration reversed the Obama Biden
vehicle standard and pick big oil
companies over American workers , the
Biden Harris administration will not
only bring those standards back will
set new , ambitious ones that are
workers are ready to meet . We see
these workers building new buildings ,
installing 500,000 new electric vehicle
charging stations across the country As
we modernize our highway system to
adapt to the changes have already taken
place . We see American consumers
switching to electric vehicles through
rebates and incentives and the
residents of our cities and towns ,
breathing cleaner air and fewer kids
living with asthma and dying from it .
And not only that the federal
government owns and maintains an
enormously two vehicles . As you all
know , with today's executive order ,
combined with the Buy American
Executive Order I signed on Monday ,
we're gonna harness the purchasing
power of the federal government to buy
clean zero emission vehicles that are
made and sourced by union workers right
here in America with everything I just
mentioned . This will mean one million
new jobs in the American automobile
industry . One million we'll do .
Another thing would take steps towards
my goal of achieving 100% carbon
pollution free electric sector by 2035 .
Transforming the American electric
sector to produce power without carbon
pollution will be a tremendous spurt of
job creation and economic
competitiveness in the 21st century .
Not to mention the benefits or health
and to our environment . Already ,
84% of all new electric capacity
plan to come onto the electric grid
this year . Is clean energy clean
energy ? Why ? Because it's affordable
because it's clean because in many
cases it's cheaper and the way we're
keeping up there keeping up , we're
gonna need scientists . The national
labs , land grant , universities ,
historical black colleges ,
universities to innovate , the
technologies needed to generate , store
and transmit clean electric , clean
electricity across distances and
battery technology and a whole range of
other things . We need engineers to
design them and workers to manufacture
them . We need ironworkers and welders
install them technologies they invent
design and build will ultimately
ultimately become cheaper than any
other kind of energy , helping us
dramatically expand our economy and
create more jobs with a cleaner ,
cleaner environment and will become the
world's largest exporter of those
technologies , creating even more jobs .
You know , we're also gonna build 1.5
million new energy efficient homes and
public housing units that they're gonna
benefit communities three times over
one by alleviating a formal ,
affordable housing crisis two by
increasing energy efficiency and three
by reducing the racial wealth gap
linked to home ownership . We're also
going to create more than a quarter
million jobs to do things like plug the
million's of abandoned oil and gas
wells that pose an ongoing threat to
the health and safety of our
communities . They're abandoned wells .
They're open now , and we're gonna put
people toe work . We're not gonna lose
jobs in these areas . Gonna create jobs .
They're gonna get prevailing wage toe
cap , those over a million wells .
These aren't pie in the sky . Dreams
these air concrete actionable solutions .
Now we know how to do this . Obama
Biden administration . Reduce the auto
industry , rescue the auto industry and
help them retool . We need solar
energy cost competitive with
traditional energy . Weatherizing more .
We made it cost competitive . Whether
rising more than a Million Homes
Recovery Act of our administer last
administer arm in the Democratic
administration made record clean energy
investments $90 billion . The president
asked me toe , make sure how that money
was spent on everything from smart grid
systems to clean energy manufacturing .
Now the Biden Harris administration is
gonna do it again and go beyond the
executive order I'll be signing ,
establishes the White House Office of
Domestic Climate Policy . It will be
led by one of America's most
distinguished climate leaders , former
EPA director Gina McCarthy . As the
head of the new office and my national
climate adviser , Gina will chair the
National Climate Task Force , made up
of many members of our Cabinet , to
deliver a whole of government approach
to the climate crisis . This is not
it's not time for small measures . We
need to be bold . So let me be clear .
That includes helping revitalize the
economies of coal , oil and gas and
power plant communities . We have to
start creating new , good paying jobs ,
capping those abandoned wells ,
reclaiming minds , turning old
brownfield sites in the new hubs of
economic growth , creating new , good
paying jobs in those communities where
those workers live because they helped
build this country . We're never gonna
get the men and women who dug the coal
and built the nation . We're gonna do
right by them , make sure they have
opportunities to keep building the
nation in their own communities and
getting paid well for it . While the
whole of government approach is
necessary , though it's not sufficient .
We're gonna work with mayors and
governors and tribal leaders and
business leaders who are stepping up in
the young people , organizing and
leading the way . My message to those
young people is you have your full
capacity and power of the federal
government . Your government is gonna
work with you now . Today's executive
order also directs the Secretary of the
Interior to stop issuing new oil and
gas leases on public lands and off and
in offshore waters . Wherever possible ,
we're gonna review and reset the oil
and gas leasing program like the
previous administration , we'll start
to properly manage . Unlike it , we're
gonna start to properly manage lands
and waterways in ways that allow us to
protect preserve them the full value
that they provide for us for future
generations . Let me be clear , and I
know it's always comes up . We're not
going to ban . Fracking will protect
jobs and grow jobs , including through
stronger standards like controls from
methane leaks and union workers , and
willing to install the changes . Unlike
previous administrations , I dont think
the federal government should give
handouts to big oil to the tune of $40
billion in fossil fuel subsidies . I'm
gonna be going to the Congress asking
them to eliminate those subsidies .
We're gonna take money and invested in
clean energy jobs in the area ,
millions of jobs and wind , solar and
carbon capture . In fact , today's
action is gonna help us increase from a
noble energy production from offshore
wind and meet our obligation to be good
stewards of our public lands . It
establishes a new modern day civilian
climate core . Then I called for when I
was campaigning to heal our public
lands and make us less vulnerable . The
wildfires and floods . Look , this
executive order I'm signing today also
makes it official that climate change
will be the center of our national
security and foreign policy . A
Secretary Kerry as our special
presidential envoy for climate with him .
The world knows how serious I am about
one of America's by appointing one of
America's most distinguished statesman
on one of my closest friends . Speaking
for America on one of the most pressing
threats of our time , John was
instrumental in negotiating the Paris
climate agreement that we started that
we that we re joined . This
administration rejoined on Day one , as
I promised . And today's executive
order will help strengthen that
commitment by working with other
nations to support the most vulnerable
to the impact of climate change and to
increase our collective resilience .
That includes a summit off world
leaders that I'll convene to address
this climate crisis on Earth Day this
year in order to establish a new
effort to integrate the security
implications of climate change . As
part of our national security , risk
assessment and analysis will also be
included . With this executive order ,
environmental justice will be at the
center of all we do . Addressing the
disproportionate health and
environmental and economic impacts on
communities of color . So called fence
line communities , especially those
communities brown , black , Native
American , poor whites . It's hard .
The hearted areas by Cancer Alley in
Louisiana , Cancer Alley in Louisiana
or the Route nine Carter in the state
of Delaware . That's why we're gonna
work to make sure that they receive 40%
of the benefits off key federal
investments in clean energy , clean
water and wastewater infrastructure .
Lifting up these communities makes us
all stronger . As a nation , it
increases the health of everybody .
Finally , as with our fight against
covert 19 , we will listen to the
science and protect the integrity of
our federal response to the climate
crisis . Earlier this month , I
nominated Dr Eric Lander , a brilliant
scientist who is here today to be the
director of the Office of Science and
Technology . I also nominate another
brilliant scientist , Dr Frances Arnold
and Dr Maria Zuber , to co chair the
President's Council of Advisors on
Science and Technology . So called P
cast the President Eisenhower started
six weeks after the launch of Sputnik .
It's a team of America's top scientists
charge of asking the most American of
questions . What next ? What's the next
big breakthrough and then helping us
make the impossible possible ? Today ,
I'm signing presidential memorandum ,
making it clear that we will protect
our world class scientists from
political interference and ensure they
can think research and speak freely and
directly to me , the vice president and
the American people to summarize this .
If you're out of order , it's about
jobs . Good paying union jobs . It's
about workers building our economy back
better than before . It's a whole of
government approach . Put climate
change at the center of our domestic
national security and foreign policy .
It's advancing , conservation ,
revitalizing communities and cities and
in the on the farmlands and securing
environmental justice . Our plans are
ambitious , but we are America . We're
bold , were unwavering in the pursuit
of jobs and innovation , science and
discovery . We can do this . We must do
this and we will do this . I'm now
going to sign the executive order to
meet the climate crisis with American
jobs and American ingenuity . And I
want to thank you all . I'm gonna go
over and sign that now .
Oh ,
thought he's the right
pencil .
First order I'm signed . It is tackling
the climate crisis at home and abroad .
This next one restoring trust in
government through science and
integrity and evidence based policy
making .
Mhm
more here .
And this last one is the President's
Council on Advisors on Science and
Technology status .
Thank you for your time . Thank
you .