Progressives push for an executive order declaring a ‘climate emergency’

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Joe Biden executive order climate emergency

Progressives want Joe Biden to issue an executive order declaring a climate emergency

Perhaps using the lessons learned during the past two years of COVID tyranny, progressives want Joe Biden to declare a “climate emergency” and issue an executive order to address global warming in the same way they dealt with the so-called pandemic.

While ignoring record-breaking inflation and skyrocketing prices at the gas pump, progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives are preparing to publicly demand that Joe Biden ban oil drilling on federal lands by declaring a “climate emergency” (via FoxNews.com):

According to a report from Politico, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is planning to demand that Biden use his executive power to declare climate change an emergency and ban drilling on federal lands.

“Progressive Caucus member @JaredHuffman told me calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency is one of the ‘centerpiece’ actions to headline their EO plan,” Politico reporter Joshua Siegel tweeted Tuesday. “A draft of the plan I saw also calls for Biden to ban oil/gas drilling on public lands and end fossil fuel subsidies.” (emphasis mine)

I’ve been warning from the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency that something like this would happen due in no small part to the groundwork that was laid by Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

Donald Trump abused the executive power of the presidency a few years ago when he issued a constitutionally questionable national emergency declaration and do an end run around Congress in order to build his imaginary border wall. Not only did he ignore the separation of powers and the role of Congress as the representatives of the people, but he also essentially gave the green light for Biden and future presidents to do the same to advance their agendas.

A fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Democrats at the time.

In an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation during the 2020 Democrat primary season, Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) — he was running against Biden at the time for the Democrat nomination for president — was asked about Trump’s emergency declaration for building the border wall. In response, Inslee warned Republicans that this abuse of executive power would greenlight a new standard by which Democrats would govern on issues like so-called climate change.

“Republicans ought to stand up on their hind legs, because they took an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump, and reverse this decision.

“But if there are new rules, the Republicans have to understand that Democrats will play by whatever the rules are, particularly when it comes to climate change.” (emphasis mine)

In an interview with Rachel Maddow shortly after becoming Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer used Trump’s track record of abuse of executive power to suggest that Biden do the same and declare a state of emergency to address climate change:

“It might be a good idea for President Biden to call a climate emergency.

“He can do many, many things under the emergency powers … that he could do without legislation.

“Trump used this emergency [power] for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one.” (emphasis mine)

Ironically, Sen. Marco Rubio predicted that Trump’s “national emergency” declaration concerning his border wall could greenlight Biden’s to do the same to fight climate change. In a January 2019 CNBC interview, the Florida Republican issued the following warning:

“We have to be careful about endorsing broad uses of executive power.

“If today, the national emergency is border security … tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change.”

Of course, Rubio and the rest of the spineless Republican Party did nothing to stop Trump’s abuse of executive power.

Before COVID tyranny, the idea of issuing a climate emergency to advance the green agenda was more theoretical than practical, but the lessons learned over the past two years has provided the far-left with a model for addressing so-called climate change (excerpts from Op-Ed by Kristin Tate via TheHill.com):

The past two years have been a checklist for the worst impulses of government and public sentiment. COVID allowed for supposedly temporary measures to morph into two years of “emergency” restrictions.

But what if COVID was only the opening act, and another proclaimed crisis is the main event? Implementing significant but partial restrictions, one by one, in the name of the common good can allow for encompassing government control that results in relatively little backlash. Fear over climate change could lead to long-term soft lockdowns, given the precedent of immense growth of government power and significant support for sweeping state actions.

This isn’t a right-wing fever dream. Calls for harsh government measures in the name of saving the environment are already in the parlance of influential organizations and figures.

In November 2020, the Red Cross proclaimed that climate change is a bigger threat than COVID and should be confronted with “the same urgency.” Bill Gates recently demanded dramatic measures to prevent climate change, claiming it will be worse than the pandemic. Despite millions of people having died from COVID, former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney last year predicted that climate deaths will dwarf those of the pandemic.

Lockdowns, which significantly reduced carbon emissions during 2020, could be the solution. (emphasis mine)

In March 2021, I wrote about a report published by a group of climate scientists that documented how carbon emissions fell thanks to COVID lockdowns and mandates and how, in order to meet goals spelled out in the Paris Climate Agreement, they suggested that pandemic lockdowns needed to occur once every two years to end global warming and keep the earth at “safe” temperature levels.

By the way, progressives won’t limit themselves to climate; national emergency declarations could be used to advance other priorities of the far-left via executive fiat:

It has become a game of sorts for Republicans to ridicule the climate agenda of far-left Democrats as simply too extreme to be a serious threat, but I remember how they ridiculed healthcare reform when Democrats first proposed Obamacare.

Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leadership, and the socialists running the party have been setting the agenda since 2020, so talk about climate emergency declarations shouldn’t be dismissed as the rhetorical rantings of extremists. Nor should we assume that they will fail to advance that agenda, particularly in light of the noticeable shift to the left by Trumpist Republicans in favor of the global warming agenda.

COVID tyranny and the abuse of executive power have gone unchecked by both Republicans and Democrats over the past two-plus years, so all bets are off if progressives succeed in convincing Joe Biden to issue an executive order declaring a climate emergency.

 

David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.

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