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The newly elected United States president, Joe Biden’s ambitious $2 trillion green plan might be reaching a political reality for transitioning from the oil industry. The Biden plan to build sustainable infrastructure and economy had been one of the top four political manifestos with a far-reaching scope covering clean infrastructure, power-sector reform, and auto industry development.
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The Right Group for the Task
For the goal, which has been far-reaching for many United States presidents before Biden, the newly elected prime had recently announced his nominees for key climate and energy posts with Deb Haaland, the New Mexico Representative for interior secretary and Jennifer Granholm, former Michigan Government for energy secretary.
Calling the team, the “right group” for achieving the promised green goals, Biden had described them as “barrier-busting”. However, even the right group and barrier busters could now face crossroads ahead.
While much work has been done on the appointing the right team to make America a net-zero economy by 2050, the political reality could be far more challenging with Democrats losing seats at the House of Representative.
Best Hope is to Split the Senate
At present, the team Biden can best hope to split the senate half with Republicans by winning two run-off elections in Georgia in January 2021. With that happening, the full gamut of Biden’s reformatory plan has little chance to make it through such dividend chambers.
However, while the political reality of the ambitious target might be different and challenging than initially thought off during the election campaign, a ray of hope yet persists in the overall scenario.
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President’s Executive Power Enough to Sail the Green Plan Ahead?
The executive power of a president should provide some flexibility for the goal, which millions of Americans have voted for, but would that be enough remains a question. Some industry experts believe that without senate in hand, even the executive power of the president will not be enough to sail the decarbonisation targets through.
Furthermore, while current legislation such as Clean Air Act or National Environmental Policy Act, empower many federal bodies including the Environmental Protection Agency and could drive emission-reduction goals somewhat, but the increasingly conservative judiciary might become an obstacle as well.
Another relatively easy for Mr Biden is to move ahead with the approval of clean energy projects left on the shelf by the Trump administration to move forward with the ambitions goal of making the America emission-free by 2050.
While there is an array of possible ways to at least start towards achieving the carbon neutrality, the full-blown development would require a majority in the senate. The coming run-off elections in Georgia would decide the fate of this ambitious goal.
