President Joe Biden announced steps Friday to restore national forests that have been devastated by wildfires, drought and blight, using an Earth Day visit to Seattle to sign an executive order protecting some of the nation’s largest and oldest trees.
What You Need To Know
- President Joe Biden announced steps Friday to restore national forests that have been devastated by wildfires, drought and blight
- Biden used an Earth Day visit to Seattle to sign an executive order protecting some of the nation’s largest and oldest trees
- While his ambitious climate agenda has been marred by setbacks, the president spent much of his speech Friday highlighting his administration’s climate-related accomplishments
- Biden took a few shots at former President Donald Trump and his environmental policies
Old-growth trees are key buffers against climate change and provide crucial carbon sinks that absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Biden’s order directs federal land managers to define and inventory mature and old-growth forests nationwide within a year. The order requires the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service to identify threats to older trees, such as wildfire and climate change, and develop policies to safeguard them.
“Our forests are our planet’s lungs,” Biden said during a speech at the city-owned Seward Park. “They literally are cycling CO2 out of the atmosphere.”
The order does not ban logging of mature or old-growth trees, the White House said.
More broadly, the executive order aims to strengthen the nation’s forests, communities and local economies and plant 1.2 billion trees around the country.
By signing the order Friday, Biden can publicly reassert his environmentalist credentials at a time when his administration has been preoccupied by high oil and gasoline prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Gas costs have been a drag on Biden’s popularity and created short-term political pressures going into this year’s midterm elections, yet the Democratic president has been focused on wildfires that are intensifying because of climate change.
The measure is intended to safeguard national forests that have been severely damaged by wildfires, drought and blight, including recent fires that killed thousands of giant sequoias in California. Redwood forests are among the world’s most efficient at removing and storing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and provide critical habitat for native wildlife and watersheds that supply farms and communities in the West.
Blazes so intense to kill trees once considered virtually fire-proof have alarmed land managers, environmentalists and tree lovers the world over — and demonstrated the grave impacts of climate change. A warming planet that has created longer and hotter droughts, combined with a century of fire suppression that choked forests with thick undergrowth, has fueled flames that extinguished trees dating to ancient civilizations.
A senior administration official noted that forests absorb more than 10% of U.S. annual greenhouse gases, while also providing flood control, clean water, clear air and a home to wildlife.
Biden’s ambitious climate agenda has been marred by setbacks, a year after he took office amid a flurry of climate-related promises. The president hosted a virtual summit on global warming at the White House last Earth Day. He used the moment to nearly double the United States’ goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, vaulting the country to the front lines in the fight against climate change.
A year later, his most sweeping proposals remain stalled on Capitol Hill despite renewed warnings from scientists that the world is hurtling toward a dangerous future marked by extreme heat, drought and weather.
In addition, Russia’s war in Ukraine has reshuffled the politics of climate change, leading Biden to release oil from the nation’s strategic reserve and encourage more domestic drilling in hopes of lowering sky-high gas prices that are emptying American wallets.
But the president spent much of his speech Friday highlighting his administration’s climate-related accomplishments, many of which are a result of the bipartisan infrastructure law passed in November. He noted that the legislation set aside billions of dollars for a nationwide network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, electric school and transit buses, rail and public transit upgrades, the replacement of lead pipes, and more.
“We got a lot done,” the president said.
He also called on Congress again to pass the rest of his climate agenda — part of the stalled package once known as Build Back Better.
“My pen’s ready to sign,” he said. “I’m anxious to sign these.”
During his speech, Biden took a few shots at former President Donald Trump and his environmental policies. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement aimed at mitigating the impact of climate change, and his administration regularly rolled back environmental protections.
“I think that we’re in one of those moments in world history and in American history where we’ve reached the point that the crisis on the environment has become so obvious — with the notable exception of the former president — that we really have an opportunity to do things we couldn’t have done two, five, 10 years ago,” Biden said.
Biden also said last Earth Day his administration convened more than 40 world leader to reassert “America’s leadership on climate after four years of administration denying that there was a climate crisis, denying that there was any need to do anything about the environment.”
And while touting wind energy, Biden quipped, “Windmills don’t cause cancer,” a reference to a debunked claim made by Trump.
