Reversing Trump, Interior Department Moves Swiftly on Climate Change

March 2, 2021 ☼ interiorcabinethaalandbiden

Source: The New York Times - Link

As the Interior Department awaits its new secretary, the agency is already moving to lock in key parts of President Biden’s environmental agenda, particularly on oil and gas restrictions, laying the groundwork to fulfill some of the administration’s most consequential climate change promises.

Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico, Mr. Biden’s nominee to lead the department, faces a showdown vote in the Senate likely later this month, amid vocal Republican concern for her past positions against oil and gas drilling. But even without her, an agency that spent much of the past four years opening vast swaths of land to commercial exploitation has pulled an abrupt about-face.

This is a good thing. We need to protect resources for the future and not squander them in the present for fleeting profit. Our usage will not be the same in the future.