- [Instructor] Thank you for joining us for A Matter of Degrees, tracking the Biden Administration on Climate Change with Julian Brave NoiseCat, moderated by Leah Stokes and Katherine Wilkinson.

Before we begin, thank you to our Science in the environment Track Sponsor UBS.

- We'd also like to thank our Founding Sponsor, the Kerry and Linda Killinger foundation.

- This is A Matter of Degrees, a podcast that tells stories for the climate curious, I'm Dr. Leah Stokes.

- And I'm Dr. Katherine Wilkinson and you're with us right now for a special live episode of the show.

- And today we wanted to dig in on all of the Biden administration's progress when it comes to climate, taking a deeper dive into his proposed American Jobs plan.

- Right, we know our listeners are curious about the flurry of news coming out of this administration.

So we wanted to take a look at these dare we say nuggets of hope and what they mean for the planet.

- And to do that, we have with us today, Julian Brave NoiseCat, he's a writer activist and policy expert who's got a very deep understanding of Washington's climate politics.

Julian was actually a guest correspondent in season one of our show, if you're interested, go check out A Matter of Degrees, episode seven, called Changing Woman, one Navajo's Fight for a Just Transition.

And the cool thing is that the protagonist of his amazing episode Wahleah Johns is now working in the Biden administration at the Department of Energy, but back to Julian the star for today.

He is Vice President of policy and strategy at the Think Tank Data for Progress and a fellow at the Type Media Center.

He's also a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Paris Review, Fox, vice we could go on and on and on, and he's a very prolific writer.

So welcome Julian, it's so great to have you back on our show.

- For better or worse here I am, back for round two.

- Definitely better.

- Definitely better, it's really nice to see you Julian and Leah I'm actually going to put you into the hot seat today too, because you are our resident political scientist.

So no coasting on hosting today, and we've got a lot of ground to cover.

So I think we should, dig in.

So we wanna talk about the state of play when it comes to Congress and the Biden administration.

So Julian, let's start with you set the scene for us.

What is going on in terms of domestic climate policy, in this moment?

- So even before President Biden took office, he signaled his strong commitment to climate action by actually creating two new positions in his administration.

One for a special climate Envoy, who is John Kerry and another for a domestic climate czar and that is Jennifer Granholm, excuse me.

No, that's EPA, that's-- - Gina McCarthy.

- Gina McCarthy, sorry.

I get these names confused sometimes.

And then also a number of a number of other, you know strong appointments for, you know, traditional cabinet positions.

One week into his administration he unveiled a slew of executive orders exactly seven days after he was sworn in.

And then in March he unveiled the American Jobs Plan, which was a more than $2 trillion infrastructure package with about a trillion dollars, depending on how you count going towards domestic climate action.

We should add, although this is not gonna be a huge subject of our conversation, that in April, he hosted a climate leader summit with a number of global leaders where the United States tried to assert its leadership on climate and tried to encourage other nations, especially China and India, as well as others, Brazil, to take more bold action to address global warming.

So it's been a very significant focus of the first few months here of the Biden administration, going back to even before the President assumed office.

And there's a lot of politics that lie ahead.

The American Jobs Plan is gonna start moving through Congress in the coming months.

And those congressional negotiations are going to alongside the implementation of a number of regulations later on in the year, are gonna determine, you know just how much the President is able to achieve on this essential issue.

- Yeah.

- Well Julian you've covered so much ground here I'm very impressed.

What am I going to add?

You know I think as Julian just said the Biden administration has come out so boldly on climate change more so than we would have thought.

And it started even before the administration began with appointments, really amazing appointments.

Gina McCarthy and John Kerry are of course, top of the list, but people like Jennifer Granholm and of course, Deb Haaland, that we'll talk about later, which Julian was really instrumental in helping get to happen.

But then even below that level, amazing people like Sonia Agarwal in the White House, David Hayes, people like Jeremiah Bowman, Shalanda Baker, Wahleah Johns, and the DOE.

There's just so many amazing people who have deep trust and experience in the climate movement who are now inside the Biden administration and helping to fuel all the stuff that Julian went over.

- Yeah it is really exciting.

And I think it's fair to say that there was a good bit of anxiety from activists and Progressive's, and I think Julian correct us if we're wrong, but I would put you in this camp about kind of whether Biden would take climate seriously, right, at sort of the level that we know is necessary.

And in the ways that we think are just, and I'm curious now, you know, kind of a season into this.

How do you think Biden is doing so far on the issue?

Has he wooed you, when it comes to climate?

- Well, I guess people could question whether I take climate action seriously, given that I've forgot Gina McCarthy's name.

(both laughing) For a second there, apologies.

So, you know, I think that there was widespread concern during the presidential primary that President Biden represented more of the same when it came to climate change.

And on this issue in particular more of the same is, not nearly enough and is going to you know, ruin the planet for future generations and future selves, because we're, at that point in, you know, climate.

Early on in his administration he, made some comments that were, I would say, especially concerning.

There was a concern around his first sort of draft of his climate plan, which came out around May, 2019.

And whether, you know, he would be aggressive in his stance towards natural gas, or what's increasingly called fossil gas by advocates and experts.

And you know to his credit I think that, Biden was actually fairly responsive to those concerns over time.

After the primary, you know, as it became very clear that Biden was going to be the Democratic Party's nominee.

He created a unity task force with representatives from the Bernie Sanders Presidential campaign, including leaders of the Sunrise Movement, like Varshini Prakash, representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who were both on the climate focused working group of the Sanders unit, Biden Sanders unity task force.

And you know, he was willing to actually revise his climate plan in the second edition of his platform, which was called the Build Back Better plan.

And I was actually talking to some political scientists and historians at the time in particular, Daniel Schlozman who wrote this wonderful book called, "When Movements Anchor Parties".

And he told me that Biden actually adopted more progressive positions when he was assured of his party's nomination, was an unprecedented move in modern democratic political history.

The nominee usually moves to the center as they're heading toward the general election and not to the left.

So I think that that moment of the party reconciling its ideological and other differences was really key.

And I would also give the President effort in, you know, being this unusual political figure who seems to be able to bridge these generational and ideological divides that do exist on the American land.

- Yeah.

Leah, what's your read?

- I totally agree with everything Julian just said, you know, a lot of us were worried at the beginning of the primary and then a new plan came out after that Bernie Biden task force that Julian talked about, which included really bold ideas.

Like the 100% clean electricity standard by 2035, which was endorsed by that unity task force with people like representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Varshini Prakash precaution of Sunrise, et cetera.

So, you know, we started to see really bold stuff from Biden and it wasn't just you know, a campaign document on a website.

He was talking about this on the campaign trail.

In fact, the campaign ran climate focused ads in both Michigan and Arizona, really committing to climate as an issue.

And I think Julian is so right that Biden is this unlikely figure.

Maybe his closeness with his granddaughters, it was part of the explanation or maybe his deep empathy as a human being.

You know, I think he really understands the fear that young people feel about climate change and he doesn't want to leave them with this huge problem.

And so he's really become this unlikely climate champion, in a really exciting way.

- I think it's a really obviously very visible but exciting example of what seems to be happening in so many sectors, right?

Of people being willing to learn and being willing to lead on a topic that may not have defined their, their careers to date.

And as you said Leah, the social science does tell us that daughters and granddaughters are particularly effective climate messengers.

So I think you may be onto something there.

As you mentioned Julian, at the end of March Biden proposed the American Jobs Plan, big proposal to spend between 2$ to $3 trillion on infrastructure, everything from clean public transit to clean and clean electricity removing lead from pipes, ending fossil fuel subsidies.

I think it's fair to say, it's a big idea.

Leah let's start with you on this one, what is going on with this proposal, Professor Stokes?

Well, the American Jobs Plan as Julian mentioned, came out right at the end of March.

I believe it was March 31st Biden gave a big speech in Pittsburgh.

They've sort of laid out their plans.

It's a really bold idea to invest in infrastructure and invest in the clean energy transition.

And a lot of the framing that the Biden administration has been focusing on, is jobs.

And actually Julian's been out there.

And I very much agree with him saying that we should make climate change about benefits, about jobs, about good things, not just about sort of pain and suffering and sacrifice.

And that's really the political theory behind the way they've been talking about this plan and I think it's really smart.

Some of the components of the American Jobs Plan include the clean electricity standard, trying to hit 100% clean power by 2035.

Commitments on clean transportation.

I think this is perhaps the thing that sometimes I hear the admin talk the most about they're really into, you know, public transit, school buses, charging infrastructure, EVs, you name it.

Maybe that's the sort of Biden effect that it certainly has rubbed off on SEcretary Buttigieg who is like Biden 2.0 in his love for clean transportation.

And then also the building sector, which is another area that I'm very passionate about in some ways actually the buildings commitments are not even as bold as the campaign targets were.

So the campaign was aiming to do 2 million homes over the time period.

And the American Jobs Plan is only saying 2 million buildings.

So that would be commercial and, and homes.

And that's something that I feel like we need to go bolder on.

I've been very inspired by the work of rewiring America, RMI, Sierra Club, lots of local groups saying, hey guys, we gotta electrify buildings.

We gotta get off gas and all this new research is coming out, showing that having gas in your home for kids, it's like having secondhand smoke, that it increases the risk of asthma for kids for like by 42%, if you have a gas stove in your home.

So I feel like buildings is a place where we can go bigger, but really exciting stuff on transportation and the electricity sector.

And even other stuff like justice, like the lead pipes transformation and the commitment to the Justice 40, having 40% of the benefits of investment go to disadvantaged community.

So big, bold idea.

And we're gonna to see how it goes in Congress if they pick it up, and how it develops.

- Yeah.

Julian, jump in if there's anything on the, on the sort of legislative piece, but also curious what your thoughts are on the prospects of actually getting this thing into law.

How are you seeing the odds and what are the hurdles that have to be overcome?

- Yeah, so to avoid being duplicative, because I think Leah covered a lot of ground there.

I would just say that the sort of views that I've mostly seen from experts and advocates have been that the American jobs plan had pretty solid rep of policy coverage.

I would agree that the, the stuff on buildings and housing could be stronger for sure.

And I think you could make the same argument in some specific areas, but overall, I would say that they're trying to do a lot across the sectors that we need to transform and decarbonize.

And that they are also trying to incorporate a lot of pieces of equity and justice.

So we just mentioned the justice 40 initiative, which would dedicate 40% of the benefits of the Jobs Plan to communities on the front lines of poverty and pollution.

They're also trying to make a strong commitment to organized labor and unions by you know, enforcing strong procurement and labor standards, which I think is very encouraging.

In my view unions are essential to a healthy and equitable democracy and economy.

But I think there's also this question of scale and while the American jobs plan, I think is, you know, really big, I mean, we're talking in trillions of dollars and figures here, it's over $2 trillion.

And when you combine that with the American Family's Plan, which is 1.8 trillion so that's a lot of public investment.

But if anything actually I think that, especially with the jobs report that came in today, which showed that job growth is actually slowing in the economy as well as some compelling evidence from various economists, including Paul Krugman in his, in his most recent op-ed, that there aren't actual real concerns about inflation right now.

That we should actually be investing even more into the economy to decarbonize and also to achieve full employment.

You know I think, Biden often talks about his desire to lead an LBJ or FDR side's presidency.

And one thing that both of those democratic presidents had in common was that they did aim for, you know, full employment, a situation where everyone who wants a job in the economy can find a job.

And that's not just a good thing because it's good for people to have work and the benefits that come with work, but also because it rebalances the power between, you know the managers and owners of capital and the labor market and gives workers more bargaining power.

And there's a compelling study from the Political Economic Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst that suggests that to, you know take on, decarbonization and to move the economy to full employment.

We should be investing something on the scale of $1 trillion per year, over 10 years or $10 trillion over 10 years.

So I would say that there's gonna be a lot of back and forth between the different ideological camps between moderates and progressives, especially over the coming months about the American jobs plan.

And one of the core things is gonna be on the scale and scope of the investments with progressives saying that we need to go bigger and bolder, perhaps even bigger and bolder than, what the President has put forward.

- Yeah.

Leah.

- Yeah for my own.

I think that's so right Julian.

The challenge with me and Julian on this podcast is we really agree with each other on a lot of things.

- I know the tension here guys, the dramatic tension.

- The tension.

I can't believe he said that, but, I think too that you know, this is the best opportunity we have had in a decade to do climate policy.

It's the best opportunity we've had to do comprehensive climate legislation, you know, since Waxman Markey.

And it's way bigger and bolder than even that package was.

And so I'm really hopeful about this bill passing.

I think it's so great strategically that the Biden administration has put it on the top of the agenda, you know, we're not in year two.

You know, bottom of the ninth kind of thing here, we're saying hey, this is the agenda before we get to let's say the fall of this year to pass a climate bill.

And you know, obviously there's tight votes in the Senate.

There's even tight votes in the House, but I feel like we can pull together.

We can focus on job creation.

We can focus on investment, get a lot of benefits here and that everybody will see something that they'd like in this package I hope, except maybe oil and gas.

But that's the fossil fuel industry and you know, we're trying to stabilize the climate over here.

So you know, I think there's a really, really big shot and we all need to pull together to try and get this across the finish line.

- Yeah, totally.

Let's talk a little bit about agencies.

Julian as Leah mentioned at the top, you were a huge proponent of Deb Haaland's appointment to head up the Department of Interior and it's early days obviously, but curious how you think things are going, what does she need to get done?

And what can she get done recognizing that she is a visionary working in, you know, a little bit of a dinosaur of an institution, I think it's fair to say.

- Yeah so I was really proud to advocate for Madam secretary Haaland to become Madam secretary Haaland.

She was formerly the Congresswoman from New Mexico and is a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo and as a native woman is actually the first native American to ever serve in the United States cabinet, which is just, you know a remarkable achievement.

And I think speaks firstly to, just how incredible of a leader and politician she is because, you know, the truth of the matter is that she was not you know, a sort of insider who was tight with the President and his camp.

You know she was only elected to the Congress in 2018 and, you know she just didn't have those relationships and connections.

And I think that's where a bit of wish casting and organizing and just a really compelling story came in and elevated her, to become you know sort of an outside candidate for what is a really significant role.

And as a journalist and activist, I, you know, helped sort of drum up support in the press, and social media and among sort of networks of environmentalists and progressives and tribal leaders and such.

And I think that that part is also really key to getting her into that role.

And I think to me that's really encouraging cause it suggests that, you know, with a good idea and some hard work and some organizing good things really can happen through the political process, which all too often feels, you know like an impossible, nut to crack in so many ways and just such an unjust system.

You know, the Interior Department is an enormous, enormous sprawling bureaucracy manages a fifth of the nation's landmass, huge reserves of natural resources, as well as the nation to nation relationship with the 574 federally recognized tribes across the country.

- Yeah.

- And you know, it has also been deeply implicated in the colonization and attempted assimilation of first peoples throughout its history.

So in the late 1800s, it implemented the Dawes Act, which was a policy to privatize and essentially alienate tribal lands that were held collectively.

It helped to further the mission of boarding schools, where a native children were taken away to and forced into a simulation where they were often abused and beaten for speaking their languages and maintaining their cultures.

And into the 20th century it also, you know played a significant role in the era of termination, which was a stated policy of just that terminating tribal nations.

And you know that's, that's a lot of history to come up against, if you're a secretary Haaland.

And, you know I think that expectations for her are gonna be incredibly high, but I think also you know, these kinds of things don't change overnight.

You know, that kind of a ship can't turn 90 degrees in a few months.

But I think there are some encouraging signs already.

So for example actually just today, the Department of Interior, along with USDA Department of Commerce and CEQ, that's the Council of Environmental Quality released a report sort of outlining how United States would start to achieve this goal of conserving 30% of its lands and waters by 2030.

This was one of the many commitments President Biden made, among those executive orders he signed just a weekend to his Presidency and among the core principles that that report output identified was upholding tribal sovereignty and pursuing indigenous led conservation.

So essentially, starting to return lands and waters and resources to native control as part of a broader environmental strategy.

So I'm really hopeful that those kinds of policies will continue to be pursued.

And that secretary Haaland's, you know pathbreaking leadership will also mean some pretty significant meaningful change for tribal nations and for everybody.

- Yeah, I have to say I just think, it's incredibly courageous to take on leadership of a department with that much really horrifying history and also just, you know, ways of doing things that are certainly not in alignment with a agist and livable future and to be willing to step in and try to do that kind of healing, and change work that you know is hard on a good day and really hard in a sprawling bureaucracy.

Leah, I would be remiss if we didn't touch on the Department of Energy, which of course is playing a huge role as well in the administration's climate work.

What's your read on what's happening over there?

- Yeah so similarly, I think President Biden went with a pretty bold leader in former governor, Jennifer Granholm, you know, secretary Granholm is a really big champion of clean energy.

She is a energizer buddy, so to speak, she has endless energy and enthusiasm.

I feel like in some ways we are similar in that regard, you know she's just enthusiastic at all levels at all times.

So I feel like she's going to really bring a lot of energy to the topic, so to speak.

(mumbles) Yeah.

And you know what I mean, if you've ever seen her speak.

So, you know, and I think from her on down there have been amazing decisions made.

So I mentioned earlier a bunch of people at DOE.

So people like Shalanda Baker have been brought in to sort of lead a new initiative on, on energy justice and environmental justice in the DOE.

Wahleah Johns too, working on some of the issues that she was working on outside of government now doing that inside.

People like Jeremiah Bowman, who is a time political so to speak, who is on the inside, working for clean energy, great outcomes.

I have a lot of friends doing stuff like transmission, you know, trying to get rid of the rollbacks under the Trump administration.

I think that the political appointments have been rock solid across the board at DOE.

Amy Wedeman just got announced actually to be going in there to be doing intergovernmental affairs.

So really fantastic climate leaders who understand the challenge ahead of us.

And I think that the agency is very oriented towards the Biden administration priorities.

So things like, how can we get a clean electricity standard passed this year?

And secretary Granholm has actually made comments that she thinks we can do it even through budget reconciliation.

Which is really important because we cannot seem to find Republicans to support clean electricity standard despite years of effort.

And actually, I wrote a report that was, that came out with Data for Progress Julian's organization, as well as Evergreen Action showing how we can do a clean electricity standard through budget reconciliation.

So, you know, she's clearly in the weeds on this stuff and wants to see real progress on clean energy.

So I feel really excited about the direction of the Department of Energy as well.

- Nice.

There's also a great gif of you zooming around Leah of doing your hand motion for budget reconciliation.

It's like rainbows and sparkles and I do feel like secretary Granholm might be down with that.

- Yeah.

- That vibe.

- Similar energy, we've got energy on energy me and her.

- Yeah.

We touched on the 40% commitment in the American jobs plan, of sending those funds to impact it in frontline communities.

But touching back on what you were saying Julian about, you know, would Biden approach climate differently than Obama, or would this be more of the same?

What are we seeing that is distinctly different and specifically, different when it comes to the topic of environmental justice?

- Yeah so I would say that the justice 40 commitment, which is, you know again, a commitment to dedicating 40% of benefits and I think there's actually gonna be a lot of a lot there in what ends up being defined as a benefit.

And I'm actually gonna follow that very keenly.

Is a key sort of piece of the Biden's sort of theory of how to do not just climate, but to do all of his infrastructure investments.

And I think the core idea here is that, you know, an investment in a clean energy economy can also start to address some of the harms that existed and persist in the fossil fuel economy.

You know not just through the creation of jobs, but also through the reduction of pollution.

You know, in many low-income communities of color like Oakland, where I grew up, there were very high rates of asthma and other environmentally caused harms in those communities.

And, you know, those things are fully preventable.

We should have replaced every single lead pipe in this country a long time ago.

And it's actually really great that the Biden administration has prioritized that as part of, the American Jobs Plan, even though that, you know, lead pipes have nothing to do at the end of the day with greenhouse gas emissions, that is just simply good policy, good environmental policy, good infrastructure and jobs policy.

And it also is incredibly popular.

So in my view, every single time a Democrat goes and talks about the American Jobs Plan, they should be talking about how we're gonna replace every led pipe in the country.

It's a really, really good and popular idea.

I think one core thing here that is also really important is actually just understanding the, the scope of environmental injustice in this country.

So essentially all of the latest research on small particulate matter in the air suggests that, the more we learn about very, very fine particles that we are breathing in, the more we learn about how harmful they in fact are and can be.

And unfortunately, we actually do not have a very strong data collection, sort of apparatus built up across the country to really understand in detail what sort of pollution, you know, Americans are being exposed to.

And so you know, one of the core parts of the justice 40 agenda that I hope gets built very quickly is actually developing those sorts of data collection and mapping capacities to even be able to start to identify, you know with data on both socioeconomic realities as well as sort of pollution and other cumulative burdens that these communities face, where exactly are the most sort of burdened communities and sort of then be able to equip lawmakers and policymakers with the knowledge to be able to do, you know smart policy-based and (indistinct) based interventions.

And so that's, I think gonna be a really key component of, of all of this, and I'm really hopeful that they don't sort of fudge around the edges of what a benefit is and really, you know, try to make that a meaningful thing.

- Yeah, that's a really critical distinction and I'm glad you flagged it.

Julian I'm glad to know you'll be tracking that and keeping a spotlight on that as, as things go forward.

Just a quick reminder to everyone who's watching live, that we're gonna be taking some of your questions soon.

So if you have questions and I suspect you do, throw those into the chat and we'll get to them in a minute, we're gonna close out our time just the three of us with one of the things we have become kind of keen on doing, which is a sort of rapid fire closing.

A little, a little energy as we transition into some audience Q and A.

So we'll go from Leah to Julian and I'll just keep these coming.

So Leah, give us one word to summarize the state of US climate policy at this moment.

- Potential.

Strong with potential.

- Julian.

- Encouraging.

- Nice.

What is the number one thing you wanna see in the American Jobs Plan beyond better aspirations around buildings, Leah?

- The clean electricity standard obviously.

If we get 80% clean power by 2030, we'll cut carbon dioxide 86%, sulfur dioxide, 93%.

Nitrous oxide, 76% from the power sector, transformative policy, double clean power in 10 years.

I mean clean electricity standard, so excited about it.

- Coming in hot with the numbers Julian, what about you?

The number one thing.

- I'm actually gonna second Leah on this one.

I think that the clean electricity standard is essential.

There is so much carrot in the American jobs plan with incentives and investments.

I think we do need that stick though and the clean electricity standard is a core one for the power sector.

- Nice.

Leah, the number one executive action you'd like to see still to come this year.

I'd like to see some tightening of various power sector things.

So things like the mercury or toxic standard rules around coal pollution, coal ash, coal waste, those kinds of things.

Cause that's another way that we can, get into the power sector through the regulations.

- Nice.

What about you, Julian?

- I think that methane regulations on methane leakage are really important.

The more that we learned about methane in the air and trace it back to natural gas or fossil gas, the more we should be concerned about that phenomenon.

And I think there's also other ways that we can start regulating fracking as well as as Leah was bringing up earlier, you know, indoor air pollution, both of which are really essential.

- Absolutely.

- Great answer Julian, I love it.

- In a slightly different mode give us a song that you're listening to right now that's pumping you up for climate, Leah Stokes.

- Trying to remain optimistic.

You know, the pathway to the legislation passing is treacherous and so "Good As Hell" by Lizzo, has gotta be my sound track right now, keep me going.

- I love it.

What about you Julian?

- "Roughriders Anthem", rest in peace DMX.

- Nice.

- Oh, very cool.

I'm seeing a Spotify playlist possibly in the future here.

And what about some lines of poetry or other wisdom that's guiding you and keeping you grounded Leah?

- Well, I love Mary Oliver.

I'm sure you do too, Catherine.

And there's a line of her poem, which is, "may I be a tiny nail," "in the house of this universe," "tiny but useful".

And I always try to orient myself towards how can I make a difference?

How can I make a difference in this world?

- Beautiful.

Julian.

- I'm rereading N. Scott Momaday's first novel, "House Made of Dawn", which is not poetry, but it actually started as a collection of poems became a collection of stories and then ended up becoming a novel so it's a very lyrical book.

- Beautiful.

Very cool.

Well thank you all so much and we're gonna turn to some of the audience questions before, before we run out of time.

So the first one we've got has the pandemic, which has exposed so many social justice and environmental fault lines in this country made action on climate change, more or less achievable?

- Maybe I'll go first.

You know, I think some people thought that the pandemic was how we were gonna solve climate change.

Like we're all gonna live in our houses alone, never go anywhere and that is not how we're going to solve climate change.

You're going to decouple pollution from our economy.

We're not gonna shut down our economy.

So I just want to clarify that, that this is not the same thing as climate action, but you know, the sad thing about all this huge economic fallout from all the massive death across this country overwhelmingly in communities of color.

The thing is that we have an economic crisis.

And so how do we solve that problem?

I think that Biden is right that the way we solve that problem is by doing clean energy jobs by, you know, investing in our economy.

And so this does provide an opportunity to say, how do we wanna build back as Biden would say, we wanna build back clean, right?

We wanna build back better.

And so that's the way in which we have this opportunity, to really invest in our economy.

- Julian you wanna add anything?

Yeah, I would say that the pandemic has revealed sort of the poverty of free market approaches to trade and supply chains.

So, you know, in the early days of the pandemic, we had shortages of PPE, you know, it was hard to get masks and things like that.

And you know, one of the core sort of ways of looking at climate policy is as essentially a supply chain issue is essentially as an industrial policy issue.

And I think one of the core philosophical, and economic sort of shifts underlying (indistinct), if you wanna call it that is this orientation towards industrial policy in a way from, "neo-liberalism", you know, to really say that we need to be focusing on, you know, making more resilient and robust industries, particularly here in the United States, which you know, will help us in the next pandemic.

And will also make sure that like, you know, we have semiconductors and you know can build electric vehicles in places like Michigan and Wisconsin and Ohio, and stuff like that.

- Yeah that makes a ton of sense.

This one's a little more philosophical, is the slowness of democracy antithetical to real on-time fixes, to climate issues?

- Political scientist should take that one for us yeah.

- I didn't know that that was ooh I'm gonna jump in or like, ooh, this is a tough one.

I think that was the latter.

You know, I don't think so.

I think democracy is challenging, but it's kind of the system we have and it's better than the alternative.

Sometimes people live in this fantasy that if we were in sort of a fascist country or an authoritarian country, we could just impose climate action.

But I don't think that's realistic.

I don't think that that, that is actually a pathway to a greener world personally.

So I believe in democracy, I believe in the process, Congress is obviously not fully democratic.

Certain people have more voices than others some people have no voices, right?

Like DC and Puerto Rico, undocumented people.

Non-citizens, I'm not even a citizen.

I cannot vote in this country.

So, you know--- - Which is a damn shame.

- Some day soon, very soon I'm applying.

Anyway, you know so obviously not everybody gets a voice and our democracy is not full on perfect by any means, but it's the system that we have and we have those 50 votes thanks to Georgia and thanks to the organizing work of largely black women in that state and the great outcome for Ossoff and Warnock and we've got the house.

And so, hey we have a window, we can do something here.

So I think we gotta work with the system that we got and democracy can make change when it comes to climate policy.

- Yeah, I think that's right.

- Yeah I would agree with what Leah just said.

And our democracy in particular is among global democracies, relatively unrepresentative of, you know, what the popular voice is of voters, you know in particular the Senate is a significant problem.

And if you know Republicans succeed at redistricting in ways that draw lines to their favor ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, it's gonna become an even greater challenge.

The electoral college also actually, because of the way that it works, you know, disproportionately benefits, rural and predominantly white parts of this country and states.

And you know, I think that the majority of the country believes in climate change, wants to see their government act on climate change.

It's just that, you know, we do have a system that allows for forms of minority rule, which is undemocratic.

- And to add on to Julian's excellent point you know, we shouldn't be waiting for a better time for a more perfect policy to pass.

I've heard a few people say that and I just think how you think that went down with Waxman Markey, you know.

We waited to 10 years, policy windows do not come around very often.

And like Julian is saying 2022 could be really bad.

Look what's going on in Georgia right now, the disenfranchisement of people, you know, we're gonna have even harder time with our elections going forward because unfortunately the Republican Party has become quite anti-democratic to be honest.

So I think we take the opportunity when we have it.

We try to push for everything we've got, but we don't think that we could come back later and get a better opportunity later.

- No, this feels like this feels honestly like the window.

We weren't sure if we were ever going to have, right?

We've gotta take it.

- Till January fifth, your birthday right Catherine?

Exactly.

- It was an extremely good birthday I will say.

So this is a really interesting question, given that climate change poses substantial health threats, and we had talked also about health threats of burning fossil fuels and using fossil fuels in our homes.

Could you comment on the relative absence of HHS of health and human services in the Biden administration's climate actions?

- Well, there are some programs that run through HHS and I'm hope I'm getting them right.

Like I think LIHEAP, for example.

And I think perhaps the Weatherization Assistance Program, these are programs that help people retrofit their homes, particularly low income people, communities of color.

A lot of people have really leaky homes, you know, that are, that are really expensive actually to heat and have more pollution associated with them.

So we do have some programs that run through that particular thing.

Oh no, I'm thinking of HUD.

I'm not thinking of Health and Human Services, but the point still stands that there are other agencies that are involved in these pieces.

But the funny thing about agencies, as I just talked about HUD, is that, sometimes things fit in places you don't expect.

So for example, the Department of Energy has like a massive nuclear weapons budget.

In fact, the majority of the Department of Energy is actually about managing nuclear weapons and the stockpiles and proliferation.

So, you know it could be that some of the health pieces actually fit in EPA, believe it or not.

That's where a lot of the health pieces live in the climate world.

- Yeah that's a great point.

- Yeah, I would agree.

I would also just say that there's a big categorization question that comes along with some of this, you know, climate policy stuff.

You know, for example, I think that replacing every lead pipe in the country is great policy, great infrastructure development also has nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions.

But I think the place to look would be sort of the environmental justice suite of issues and, you know, included in something like an updated equity mapping system would of course be data on pollution and, you know the impacts that that has on health.

- Absolutely.

Well, unfortunately our time is up, which I'm bummed about.

Julian thank you so much for taking the time to do this and share everything that you're tracking and observing and just for a great conversation as ever.

- Thank you so much for having me, we should do a round three sometime.

- Let's do it.

- Yeah.

- Well thanks everyone so much for listening.

Thanks Crosscut for having us.

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