Vice President Kamala Harris Leads Environmental Leaders’ White House Meeting
Vice President Kamala Harris convened dozens of environmental leaders at the White House this week. According to Bloomberg News, the meeting comes as the Biden Administration enters a new phase implementing major clean energy and climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act enshrined into law last year.
The law, one of the most sweeping ever passed in U.S. history, allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to advance clean energy manufacturing, renewable deployment, conservation and the development of green technology. The law requires that much of the work be conducted by federal agencies to create programs and to draft regulations and distribute funding.
President Joe Biden has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% by the end of the decade. Nonpartisan research organization, the Rhodium Group released a report early this week explaining that even this aggressive action on climate may not be enough to meet the goals as greenhouse emissions from the U.S. increased for the second time in two years.
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Harris described how the administration’s response to addressing the climate crisis is providing economic opportunity for all Americans.
On Thursday, during an appearance in Ann Arbor, Mich., the vice president described her meeting with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm in which they discussed the nation’s environmental future with University of Michigan professor Kyle Whyte.
She outlined green economy initiatives but also noted how climate change is impacting poor and marginalized communities.
"You can look at, for example, the data that tells us that some of the regions in America with the poorest air quality are low-income communities and communities of color," said Harris, according to the Detroit Free Press. "When you look at rates of asthma, you see correlations. When you look at which communities are suffering most in terms of extreme weather and therefore need to evacuate, you can see a correlation."
