Executive Orders Demonstrate an Aggressive Environmental Agenda

President Biden's January 27th round of executive orders serves as a window on his administration's plan to use the broad umbrella of environmental policy to promote multiple administration initiatives. Not surprisingly, much of the President's focus is on climate change, including actions such as rejoining the Paris Accord, understanding how climate issues affect national security, shifting the federal transportation fleet to all-electric vehicles, and allocating more resources across the federal government to galvanize the search for climate change solutions. The administration also plans to leverage the buying power of the federal government to bolster other traditional Democratic policy goals. For example, directing the purchase of carbon-neutral vehicles or other products also serves the goal of creating and sustaining union jobs. The administration also plans to pause the leasing of federal and offshore lands for oil and gas exploration, end federal subsidies for fossil fuels, and create an inter-agency task force to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing and abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure and turn these brownfields into “economic opportunity hubs.”