Biden Prepares Actions to Cut Emissions After Signing Climate Bill

But Ms. McCarthy, who spent much of her career developing environmental regulations, including some of the country’s first policies to fight global warming when she served as the E.P.A. clean air chief, said she believes the private sector will steer the bulk of emissions cuts.

Officials expect the new law will help companies comply with new regulations at low or no cost, by giving them tax incentives to reduce emissions. That, she said, will lead emissions to drop well beyond the levels analysts are currently estimating.

“I have no question that they’ll go further and farther, because they will make money on this,” she said of the private sector.

Climate activists have called on Mr. Biden to keep pushing for new ways to curb global warming.

“We are planning for how Biden can use the rest of his two and a half years in office potentially even more to use the full extent of his executive authority,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activist group.

Beyond issuing new rules, she said activists also still hope to see Mr. Biden declare a national climate emergency, a move that would give the president the power to unlock federal funding for clean energy, among other potential actions. It is a tool White House officials considered wielding before.

“Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world,” Mr. Biden said in July, when the legislation appeared to be dead. “This is an emergency. An emergency.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/us/politics/biden-climate-bill-emissions.html