BIDEN NEEDS TO DO THIS NOW.
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A LEGAL GUIDE TO BOLD CLIMATE ACTION
FROM PRESIDENT BIDEN
Lead Authors:
Jean Su and Maya Golden-Krasner,
Center for Biological Diversity
Executive Summary
“The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis. We have a narrow moment to pursue
action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the
opportunity that tackling climate change presents.”
– U.S. President Joe Biden, Jan. 27, 2021
The climate emergency presents a “code red for humanity,”
and its devastating impacts are
already here. More than 40% of Americans live in a county hit by climate-related extreme
weather last year. At least 656 people died as climate-driven disasters including wildfires,
heat domes, deep freezes and hurricanes ravaged the country, costing upwards of $100 billion.
These disasters capture only a fragment of the climate emergency’s global impact: intensifying food
insecurity, climate migration, political unrest and irreversible biodiversity loss.
Fortunately President Biden has the tools to lead a tectonic shift. Now is the moment for Biden to turn
the page on a first year marked by stalled climate legislation and fossil fuel expansion. The president
possesses unused executive pathways — through both ordinary and emergency executive powers — to
protect the country from increasingly dire climate threats and build a just and regenerative energy
system.
A course change is crucial. Largely through burning fossil fuels, we’ve already heated the planet about
1.2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — enough for 80% of the United States to experience
a heat wave last year. Scientists expect sea levels on U.S. coasts to rise a foot in the next 30 years.
To avert far worse climate consequences and limit warming to 1.5°C, the target of the 2015 Paris
Agreement, climate science makes clear that all governments must significantly replace fossil fuels
with renewable energy by 2030. Instead the Biden administration has galloped past Trump in its
approvals of oil and gas drilling permits on federal lands and held the largest offshore lease sale in
U.S. history.
Climate change is a compounding crisis. Every delay makes it worse and harder to solve. It breeds
glaring injustice, with Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, and other
communities of color and low-wealth communities experiencing the gravest impacts. Unless we
ignite a technological and economic transformation now, we will spiral toward a dangerous and
increasingly unlivable planet.
By declaring a national climate emergency, Biden can unlock emergency executive powers already
granted by Congress to aggressively combat the crisis. This paper identifies five key climate actions the
president can take using three emergency and defense framework statutes: the National Emergencies
Act, the Defense Production Act, and the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance
Act. This discussion complements the Center for Biological Diversity’s 2019 legal report, which
identified the most significant ordinary executive powers that could be used for bold climate action —
including a permanent end to the federal fossil fuel leasing and drilling program.
Congress enacted emergency powers to allow the executive branch greater flexibility to respond to extraordinary events.
The climate emergency is the pinnacle of extraordinary events faced in our lifetimes. Biden should lawfully use emergency
powers to address this existential threat.
The use of emergency powers to respond to the climate crisis is precisely the purpose for which the laws are intended and
should be employed. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sens. Jeff Merkley and Bernie Sanders, and House
Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with 50 additional representatives, have directly urged Biden to use
his lawful emergency powers to declare a national climate emergency and take significant action. The public has echoed
these calls in peaceful protest and legal petitions.
The use of emergency powers is not new. Since the National Emergencies Act was enacted in 1976, every president has
declared at least one national emergency during their term of office. Further, presidents have routinely used the Defense
Production Act and Stafford Act to deal with emergency situations threatening national security. In fact Biden has already
employed his executive powers under both statutes to address the coronavirus pandemic and climate-related disasters in
his administration’s first year.
How the administration confronts the climate emergency will define not just the Biden presidency but the lives of future
generations. President Biden can save lives and homes, create good-paying jobs and transform a punishing and racist energy
system into a clean, regenerative one – all with the stroke of a pen. It’s time for Biden to, in his own words, “seize the
opportunity” of this watershed moment and secure the renewable, just, and equitable transformation the country needs.
Please continue reading the full report here: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/energy-justice/pdfs/Climate-Emergency-Powers-Report.pdf
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