This story was originally published by HuffPo and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
It’s the summer of cascading disasters in the United States: Downpours have made rivers of major metropoles’ transit lines, a coastal condo collapsed, flames have engulfed vast swaths of land, and triple-digit heat has roasted typically temperate regions. The catastrophes have brought a mounting death toll and incalculable trauma.
But, for the first time in over a decade, the U.S. government may actually do something about the emissions destabilizing the climate.
Last week, the Biden administration and its allies in Congress announced plans to pack the federal budget with resources and rules that could jolt a country long paralyzed by corporate obstruction and science denial into finally confronting an unprecedented crisis.
Democrats plan to use their slim majorities in Congress to pass a $3.5 trillion spending package that includes mandates to cut 80 percent of planet-heating pollution from the electricity sector by 2030, fund a new green jobs corps, and make it easier for drivers to swap gas guzzlers for electric vehicl... Read more
