PALO ALTO, Calif. — President Joe Biden on Monday touted his administration’s accomplishments combating climate change while slamming Republicans for their attempts in trying to block it.
Speaking from the Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Interpretive Center and Preserve in Palo Alto, California, Biden said working together is the only way to combat the threat of climate change.
“What we’re seeing here is an amazing success story of how you can work together to make our communities more climate resilient – that matters, it matters, resiliency matters,” he said.
“I’ve toured many sites across the country that clearly show climate change as a genuine existential – as the existential threat to humanity – the existential threat to humanity.”
Biden’s remarks come just a week after he was endorsed by four major climate groups, marking the first-ever joint endorsement from the LCV Action Fund, NextGen PAC, the Sierra Club, and the NRDC Action Fund.
The President noted how he traveled to the Golden State a year ago and surveyed wildfire damage, explaining that last year’s natural disasters caused $165 billion in damages across the country.
“But the worsening impacts are not inevitable – building on our incredible efforts locally, my administration is doing all we can to help recover and build, so we can be prepared to adapt,” he said.
The Biden administration is looking to give $2 billion in Department of Energy funding, including $67 million for California, and the first-ever White House Climate resilience summit.
The funding for climate will come from the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s key health care and climate legislation.
The President on Monday slammed Republicans in Congress for trying to repeal some of the provisions in the law.
“They were holding the country hostage over the debt limit unless I would gut the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Biden said. “I had determined not to let that happen and in the end, we didn’t just protect some of the climate money and clean energy provisions, we protected every single solitary one.”
