Climate Politics
Senate Democrats Urge Biden to Declare a ‘Climate Emergency’
- Merkley calls prospects for congressional action ‘dead’
- Biden could gain sweeping authority to promote clean energy
Joe Biden
Photographer: Ting Shen/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Senate Democrats are urging the White House to declare a “climate emergency” while dismissing any optimism that a climate change package could be moved swiftly through Congress in September.
“The potential to enact the legislation is dead,” Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, told reporters on Capitol Hill Monday evening. “This then frees up the president to use the full powers of the executive branch. And those full powers certainly include a climate emergency.”