Progressives see progress, even as Biden-Sanders task forces fall short of goals
When Sen. Bernie Sanders ended his presidential campaign and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in mid-April, the two men immediately took steps to try and unite the party ahead of a bruising general election campaign against President Donald Trump, announcing they would launch working groups to examine six different policy areas, and bridge the divide between the two wings of the Democratic party.
"It's no great secret out there, Joe, that you and I have our differences. We're not going to paper them over -- that's real. But I hope that these task forces will come together, utilizing the best minds and people in your campaign and in my campaign to work out real solutions to these very, very important problems," Sanders said during the livestream in mid-April.
The following month, six, eight-person teams were announced, pulling together odd-couple pairings of Biden and Sanders allies to tackle policy gaps on health care, climate change, criminal justice reform, immigration and the economy.
Those discussions resulted in a 110-page set of policy recommendations released this week after months of weekly Saturday Zoom calls, offering a detailed roadmap that even the liberal stalwart of the Senate posited has the potential to make Biden the “most progressive president since” Franklin Roosevelt.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/progressives-see-progress-even-as-biden-sanders-task-forces-fall-short-of-goals/ar-BB16Camq?li=BB141NW3&ocid=DELLDHP
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Global Climate Protection Act of 1986
*Sponsor: Sen. Biden, Joseph R., Jr. [D-DE] (Introduced 09/29/1986)
*Committees: Senate - Governmental Affairs
*Latest Action: Senate - 09/29/1986 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Governmental Affairs
Introduced in Senate (09/29/1986)
Global Climate Protection Act of 1986 - Directs the President to establish a Task Force on the Global Climate to research, develop, and implement a coordinated national strategy on global climate. Requires such Task Force to transmit a United States Strategy on the Global Climate to the President within a year. Requires the President to then report to specified members of Congress on such report.
Directs the President to appoint an ambassador at large to coordinate Federal efforts in multilateral activities relating to global warming.
Directs the Secretary of State to promote the early designation of an International Year of Global Climate Protection.
Urges the President to give climate protection high priority on the agenda of U.S.-Soviet relations.
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As VP, Biden also worked with President Obama on developing The otherGreen New Deal.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
2009. "Obama’s Recovery Act breathed life into renewables. Now they need rescuing."
https://grist.org/energy/obamas-recovery-act-breathed-life-into-renewables-now-they-need-rescuing/
SNIP
In February, a few weeks after being sworn in, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an $800-billion stimulus package designed to reinvigorate the economy and save millions from losing their houses and jobs.
Hidden in the Recovery Act was something that largely escaped notice at the time — $90 billion earmarked for clean energy generation, electric vehicles, transit, and training for green jobs. By many accounts, that 10 percent chunk of the stimulus bill changed the trajectory of renewables in America. Now, 12 years later, with 36 million Americans out of work amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus, it could also serve as a model for stimulus measures to come.
In November, Democrats won control of both houses of Congress.
They soon sent a stimulus package to Obama that provided over $25 billion to renewable energy generation, $20 billion to energy efficiency programs, $18 billion to transit programs, and $10 billion to modernizing the country’s electricity grid, among other miscellaneous projects.
And although the Recovery Act was frequently mocked — Republicans labeled it the “failed stimulus” — its effect on renewable power was undeniable. Today, solar and wind provide 9 percent of the country’s electricity, while coal has fallen to 23 percent. In the decade following the Recovery Act, wind generation quintupled, and solar generation multiplied by a factor of 48.
Joseph Aldy, the sole economist on Obama’s energy and environment transition team who’s now a professor of public policy at Harvard University, said that one way to see the enormous success of the Recovery Act was to compare the U.S. Energy Information Agency’s pre-2009 predictions for wind power’s growth with reality.
“We blew it away,” he said. “And when I mean blew it away, I mean that by 2011, we were up to what the EIA forecast we would have installed by 2030. The world in which we had 80 gigawatts of wind by 2020? No one envisioned that.”
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VP Joe Biden has a long history of sounding the environmental alarm, & continuing the fight even when it wasn't a popular matter.
Glad to see as President, Joe Biden will finally have the opportunity to see the fruits of his 30+ years advocating for environmental change.
💙 Congrats Joe!
May you see your 30 year environmental advocacy come full circle
🍃💙🥂
