Barack Obama did it. So did Donald Trump And now Joe Biden, the apparent president-elect will apparently use the power of the pen to unwind President Trump’s domestic agenda, one that included many actions reversing controversial environmental policies enacted by former President Obama and one that gave a boost to the nation’s oil and gas industry.
If Biden’s reported election is affirmed in the courts, he has vowed to unwind President Trump’s actions including the move to send a letter to the United Nations indicating the U.S will rejoin the Paris climate accord.
It means the U.S. could rejoin the more than 174 countries that signed onto the global effort to combat climate change.
As the Boston Globe pointed out over the weekend, “—there is no question that Biden and members of his party are eager to systematically erase what they view as destructive policies that the president pursued on the environment, immigration, health care, gay rights, trade, tax cuts, civil rights, abortion, race relations, military spending and more.”
And Biden won’t need the cooperation of Congress to do it. He’ll do it with nothing more than the stroke pf a pen. It raises questions whether there will be a return to more drilling restrictions on federal lands, tighter regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas fields, and yes, the possible ban of fracking.
What about WOTUS? Obama’s Waters of the U.S. rule created a firestorm among farm groups across the country.
Former Republican senator Rick Santorum asked it best when he was interviewed on CNN over the weekend.
“How far is he going to go?”
But speculation mounts as to who will be appointed to run the Biden energy programs. POLITICO reported former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz along with former Secretary of State John Kerry, Democratic operative Joh Podesta and even billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer are being floated as the climate czar.
Moniz and former ARPA-E chief Arun Majumdar and former Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall are being considered to be Biden’s Energy secretary.