Out West, Biden points to wildfires to push for rebuild

President cites fires as reason to pass $3.5T economic package

MATHER, Calif. — President Joe Biden on Monday used his first Western swing in office to hold out the wildfires burning across the region as an argument for his $3.5 trillion rebuilding plans, calling yearround fires and other extreme weather a climate change reality the nation can no longer ignore.

“We can’t ignore the reality that these wildfires are being supercharged by climate change,” Biden said, noting that catastrophic weather doesn’t strike based on partisan ideology. “It isn’t about red or blue states. It’s about fires. Just fires.”

With stops in Idaho and California, Biden sought to boost support for his big rebuilding plans, saying every dollar spent on “resilience” would save $6 in future costs. And he said the rebuilding must go beyond simply restoring damaged systems and instead ensure communities can withstand such crises.

“These fires are blinking ‘code red’ for our nation. They’re gaining frequency and ferocity,” Biden said after concluding an aerial tour of the Caldor Fire that threatened communities around Lake Tahoe. “We know what we have to do.”

The president’s two-day Western swing comes at a critical juncture for a central plank of his legislative agenda. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are working to assemble details of the infrastructure-plus plan — and how to pay for it, a concern not just for Republicans. A key Democratic senator said Sunday that he will not vote for a package so large.

In California, Biden took an aerial tour of land charred by the Caldor Fire after getting a briefing from officials at the state emergency services office.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who faces a recall vote Tuesday, joined Biden for the briefing.

Newsom joked that the emergency center had become his office because fire season has “just kept going,” as he amplified Biden’s message.

“This has been a hard year and a half,” Newsom said.

During an earlier briefing in Boise at the National Interagency Fire Center, which coordinates the government’s wildfire response, Biden noted that wildfires start earlier every year and that this year they have scorched 5.4 million acres. “That’s larger than the entire state of New Jersey,” Biden said.

“The reality is we have a global warming problem, a serious global warming problem, and it’s consequential, and what’s going to happen is, things are not going to go back,” he said.

Biden also praised firefighters for the life-threatening risks they take and discussed the administration’s recent use of a wartime law to boost supplies of firehoses from the U.S. Forest Service’s primary supplier, an Oklahoma City nonprofit called NewView Oklahoma.

Besides the Republican opposition in Congress, Biden needs to overcome the skepticism of two key centrist Democrats in the closely divided Senate. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have expressed concerns about the size of the $3.5 trillion spending package. Manchin said Sunday, “I cannot support $3.5 trillion,” citing his opposition to a proposed increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent and vast new social spending envisioned by the president. Manchin also complained about a process he said feels rushed.

In California, Biden appeared to respond to those concerned about the plan’s size, saying the cost “may be” as much as $3.5 trillion and would be spread out over 10 years, a period during which the economy is expected to grow.