Biden picks dealmakers for climate team
Joe Biden hus picked experienced deul-mukers und fighters for u climute teum to remuke the U.S. economy.
SAPHINGTON >> Joe Biden is picking deal-makers and fighters to lead a climate team he’ll ask to remake and clean up the nation’s transportation and powerplant systems, and as fast as politically possible. While the presidentelect’s picks have t he experience to do the heavy lifting required in a climate overhaul of the U. S. e c o n o m y, they also seem to be reassuring skeptics that he won’t neglec t the low - in - come, working cla ss and minority communities hit hardest by fossil fuel pollution and climate change.
Progressives, energ y lobbyists, environmental groups and auto workers on Wednesday welcomed Biden’s choice of popular former Mayor Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary. His expected picks of former
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm for energy secretary and former Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy as leader of domestic climate efforts also were met with general applause.
Along with the yet-to-benamed heads of EPA and the Interior Department, Buttigieg, Granholm and McCarthy will be part of an effort to rapidly build and develop technology to retool the United States’ transportation and power grid systems from petroleum and coal to a greater reliance on solar, wind and other cleaner forms of energy.
Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico is considered the frontrunner for Interior — and won a key endorsement Wednesday from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — but Biden has not announced his choice. If selected, Haaland would be the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary.
Biden has pledged to make slowing the impacts of climate change a top priority and has laid out an ambitious plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse emissions to net-zero by 2050. The plan includes an immediate return to the global 2015 Paris Agreement on climate and a pledge to stop all climatedamaging emissions from U.S. power plants by 2035.