13 November 20
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13 November 20
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Barack Obama | I'm Not Yet Ready to Abandon the Possibility of America
Barack Obama, The Atlantic
Obama writes: "I wrote my book for young people - as an invitation to bring about, through hard work, determination, and a big dose of imagination, an America that finally aligns with all that is best in us."
The Atlantic is pleased to offer, below, an adapted and updated excerpt from former President Barack Obama’s new memoir, A Promised Land, which will be published on Tuesday by Crown. Yesterday, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, sat down with President Obama to conduct the first interview for publication that he has given about the writing of his book, his time in office, and his analysis of the current political moment. The extensive interview will be posted on Monday. In the excerpt below, Obama writes about his undiminished belief in the American idea, and about the impetus to put his presidency down on paper.
t the end of my presidency, Michelle and I boarded Air Force One for the last time and traveled west for a long-deferred break. The mood on the plane was bittersweet. Both of us were drained, physically and emotionally, not only by the labors of the previous eight years but by the unexpected results of an election in which someone diametrically opposed to everything we stood for had been chosen as my successor. Still, having run our leg of the race to completion, we took satisfaction in knowing that we’d done our very best—and that however much I’d fallen short as president, whatever projects I’d hoped but failed to accomplish, the country was in better shape than it had been when I’d started.
For a month, Michelle and I slept late, ate leisurely dinners, went for long walks, swam in the ocean, took stock, replenished our friendship, rediscovered our love, and planned for a less eventful but hopefully no less satisfying second act. For me, that included writing my presidential memoirs. And by the time I sat down with a pen and yellow pad (I still like writing things out in longhand, finding that a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness), I had a clear outline of a book in my head.
First and foremost, I hoped to give an honest rendering of my time in office—not just a historical record of key events that happened on my watch and important figures with whom I interacted but also an account of some of the political, economic, and cultural crosscurrents that helped determine the challenges my administration faced and the choices my team and I made in response. Where possible, I wanted to offer readers a sense of what it’s like to be the president of the United States; I wanted to pull the curtain back a bit and remind people that, for all its power and pomp, the presidency is still just a job and our federal government is a human enterprise like any other, and the men and women who work in the White House experience the same daily mix of satisfaction, disappointment, office friction, screwups, and small triumphs as the rest of their fellow citizens. Finally, I wanted to tell a more personal story that might inspire young people considering a life of public service: how my career in politics really started with a search for a place to fit in, a way to explain the different strands of my mixed-up heritage, and how it was only by hitching my wagon to something larger than myself that I was ultimately able to locate a community and purpose for my life.
I figured I could do all that in maybe 500 pages. I expected to be done in a year.
It’s fair to say that the writing process didn’t go exactly as I’d planned. Despite my best intentions, the book kept growing in length and scope—the reason I eventually decided to break it into two volumes. I’m painfully aware that a more gifted writer could have found a way to tell the same story with greater brevity (after all, my home office in the White House sat right next to the Lincoln Bedroom, where a signed copy of the 272-word Gettysburg Address rests inside a glass case). But each time that I sat down to write—whether it was to describe the early phases of my campaign, or my administration’s handling of the financial crisis, or negotiations with the Russians on nuclear-arms control, or the forces that led to the Arab Spring—I found my mind resisting a simple linear narrative.
Often, I felt obliged to provide context for the decisions I and others had made, and I didn’t want to relegate that background to a footnote or an endnote (I hate footnotes and endnotes). I discovered that I couldn’t always explain my motivations just by referencing reams of economic data or recalling an exhaustive Oval Office briefing, for they’d been shaped by a conversation I’d had with a stranger on the campaign trail, a visit to a military hospital, or a childhood lesson I’d received years earlier from my mother. Repeatedly my memories would toss up seemingly incidental details (trying to find a discreet location to grab an evening smoke; my staff and I having a laugh while playing cards aboard Air Force One) that captured, in a way the public record never could, my lived experience during the eight years I spent in the White House.
Beyond the struggle to put words on a page, what I didn’t fully anticipate was the way events would unfold during the more than three and a half years that have passed since that last flight on Air Force One. The country is in the grips of a global pandemic and an accompanying economic crisis, with more than 230,000 Americans dead, businesses shuttered, and millions of people out of work. Across the nation, people from all walks of life have poured into the streets to protest the deaths of unarmed Black men and women at the hands of the police. Perhaps most troubling of all, our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of crisis—a crisis rooted in a fundamental contest between two opposing visions of what America is and what it should be; a crisis that has left the body politic divided, angry, and mistrustful, and has allowed for an ongoing breach of institutional norms, procedural safeguards, and the adherence to basic facts that both Republicans and Democrats once took for granted.
This contest is not new, of course. In many ways, it has defined the American experience. It’s embedded in founding documents that could simultaneously proclaim all men equal and yet count a slave as three-fifths of a man. It finds expression in our earliest court opinions, as when the chief justice of the United States bluntly explains to Native Americans that their tribe’s rights to convey property aren’t enforceable, because the court of the conqueror has no capacity to recognize the just claims of the conquered. It’s a contest that’s been fought on the fields of Gettysburg and Appomattox but also in the halls of Congress; on a bridge in Selma, Alabama; across the vineyards of California; and down the streets of New York—a contest fought by soldiers but more often by union organizers, suffragists, Pullman porters, student leaders, waves of immigrants, and LGBTQ activists, armed with nothing more than picket signs, pamphlets, or a pair of marching shoes. At the heart of this long-running battle is a simple question: Do we care to match the reality of America to its ideals? If so, do we really believe that our notions of self-government and individual freedom, equality of opportunity and equality before the law, apply to everybody? Or are we instead committed, in practice if not in statute, to reserving those things for a privileged few?
I recognize that there are those who believe that it’s time to discard the myth—that an examination of America’s past and an even cursory glance at today’s headlines show that this nation’s ideals have always been secondary to conquest and subjugation, a racial caste system and rapacious capitalism, and that to pretend otherwise is to be complicit in a game that was rigged from the start. And I confess that there have been times during the course of writing my book, as I’ve reflected on my presidency and all that’s happened since, when I’ve had to ask myself whether I was too tempered in speaking the truth as I saw it, too cautious in either word or deed, convinced as I was that by appealing to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature I stood a greater chance of leading us in the direction of the America we’ve been promised.
I don’t know. What I can say for certain is that I’m not yet ready to abandon the possibility of America—not just for the sake of future generations of Americans but for all of humankind. I’m convinced that the pandemic we’re currently living through is both a manifestation of and a mere interruption in the relentless march toward an interconnected world, one in which peoples and cultures can’t help but collide. In that world—of global supply chains, instantaneous capital transfers, social media, transnational terrorist networks, climate change, mass migration, and ever-increasing complexity—we will learn to live together, cooperate with one another, and recognize the dignity of others, or we will perish. And so the world watches America—the only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice—to see if our experiment in democracy can work. To see if we can do what no other nation has ever done. To see if we can actually live up to the meaning of our creed.
The jury’s still out. I’m encouraged by the record-setting number of Americans who turned out to vote in last week’s election, and have an abiding trust in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, in their character and capacity to do what is right. But I also know that no single election will settle the matter. Our divisions run deep; our challenges are daunting. If I remain hopeful about the future, it’s in large part because I’ve learned to place my faith in my fellow citizens, especially those of the next generation, whose conviction in the equal worth of all people seems to come as second nature, and who insist on making real those principles that their parents and teachers told them were true but that they perhaps never fully believed themselves. More than anyone else, my book is for those young people—an invitation to once again remake the world, and to bring about, through hard work, determination, and a big dose of imagination, an America that finally aligns with all that is best in us.
Donald Trump. (photo: Getty)
Trump Floats Improbable Survival Scenarios as He Ponders His Future
Maggie Haberman, The New York Times
Haberman writes: "At a meeting on Wednesday at the White House, President Trump had something he wanted to discuss with his advisers, many of whom have told him his chances of succeeding at changing the results of the 2020 election are thin as a reed."
He then proceeded to press them on whether Republican legislatures could pick pro-Trump electors in a handful of key states and deliver him the electoral votes he needs to change the math and give him a second term, according to people briefed on the discussion.
It was not a detailed conversation, or really a serious one, the people briefed on it said. Nor was it reflective of any obsessive desire of Mr. Trump’s to remain in the White House.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California, says he plans to work with moderates in his party on priorities like 'Medicare for All' and aggressive climate change policies. (photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
Divided Democratic Party Under Biden Requires Compromise, Says Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna
Noel King, NPR
King writes: "Khanna says that progressive voices helped galvanize a critical base to help win Biden the presidency."
Now that President-elect Biden, a moderate Democrat, has signaled that he will govern as such, Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California, sees room for their party to compromise.
"Joe Biden showed how to find common ground, as did Bernie Sanders — that we can speak about budgeting our values," Khanna, vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition on Thursday.
There has been debate recently within the Democratic Party over whether progressive positions cost Democrats seats in the House. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., told The New York Times recently that his constituents "are extremely frustrated by the message of defunding the police and banning fracking."
Khanna says that while Biden did not voice support for such actions, progressive voices helped galvanize a critical base to help win him the presidency.
"My view is that the Black Lives Matter movement was very, very helpful," he said. "They helped organize record turnouts in places like Milwaukee and Atlanta and Philadelphia and Detroit. And the language of activism helped the party, but it doesn't have to be the language that the party itself adopts."
Still, Khanna is adamant that he and the party's progressive wing will work with the incoming Biden administration to push for their top concerns, including "a bold clean energy plan" and "Medicare for All."
Interview Highlights
onstructive in how we message it, we can appeal to this sentiment of the Black Lives Matter movement while explaining principles in matters of common sense.
What are you going to be looking for to see how open to progressive ideas President-elect Biden will be?
Well, President-elect Biden is off to a great start with his appointment of Ron Klain [as White House chief of staff]. I know Ron Klain very well. He has reached out many times to progressives, come to the Hill, indicated a willingness to work with us. So I think the personnel is going to matter a lot.
And then, of course, the issues of his agenda. What are we going to start with in terms of the size of our stimulus and in terms of the size of our infrastructure program and other priorities?
Biden says he doesn't want Medicare for All, likes the idea of Obamacare expansion, likes a public option, thinks the eligibility age for Medicare should be 60, not 65. As far as you are concerned, is that enough?
Well, of course, I support Medicare for All. I think that that is the best system economically and also will cover everyone while lowering the premiums by not having premiums and copays. But I think a good starting point is to deliver on what the task forces came up with. So, let's at least extend Medicare to 60. Let's make sure we at least get a public option. And I think what progressives will be looking for is to implement, at the very least, the task forces that President-elect Biden ran on.
Mail-in ballots. (photo: AP)
Department of Homeland Security Calls Election "The Most Secure in American History"
Shawna Chen, Axios
Chen writes: "A top committee made up of officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its election partners refuted President Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud and irregularities in a statement Thursday, calling the election 'the most secure in American history.'"
The big picture: Trump has refused to concede to President-elect Joe Biden and is pursuing lawsuits in a number of states with baseless claims of voter fraud. The public statement from the president's own Department of Homeland Security undermines his narrative and is sure to infuriate him.
What they’re saying: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised," members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee said in a statement.
- Voting systems were made secure through pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s certification of equipment.
- The joint statement acknowledged “opportunities for misinformation” and urged voters to seek out election officials as “trusted voices.”
Between the lines: This government statement about the election being secure should be unremarkable, Axios' Jonathan Swan notes.
- But the sad reality is it’s a dangerous document for the officials who wrote it.
- Every person who had a hand in writing it will almost certainly face the wrath of Trump and his inner circle in the White House.
Driving the news: CISA director Christopher Krebs has told associates he expects to be fired after he angered the White House by debunking election misinformation promoted by Trump online, Reuters first reported Thursday.
- The White House also asked Bryan Ware, assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, to hand in his resignation, which he did on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Joe Biden, the president-elect and his wife, Jill, on the campaign trail in Cleveland, Ohio, prior to Mr Biden's election victory. (photo: Reuters)
Trump Officials Say the President's Refusal to Admit Defeat to Biden Could Slow Down a Vaccine Rollout, According to Report
Ashley Collman, Business Insider
Collman writes: "President Donald Trump's refusal to concede could prolong the US coronavirus outbreak and lead to more loss of American lives, senior administration officials have said."
On Monday, Trump blocked government officials from working with President-elect Joe Biden's staff while continuing to contest the 2020 election results, the Associated Press reported.
That includes Trump's COVID-19 task force, which has been barred from communicating with the team that will handle Biden's response to the pandemic, according to The Daily Beast.
Multiple current senior officials working on Trump's COVID-19 response spoke with The Daily Beast, including those working on Operation Warp Speed, a private-public coordination to speed up the process of developing and distributing a coronavirus vaccine.
These officials told The Daily Beast that without close partnership with Biden's team, there could be significant delays in disbursing a coronavirus vaccine to the public.
"The vaccine distribution planning takes time," one senior health official told the outlet. "And Operation Warp Speed has built up a huge database that is guiding their decisions about how best to roll out the vaccine. It's essential Biden's camp has access to this information so that when a vaccine does become available it can get out to the public quickly."
Business Insider has contacted the White House for comment.
Public-health experts have been optimistic about Biden's presidency, with some telling Business Insider's Aria Bendix recently that Biden had the potential to create a smoother vaccine rollout and overall decline in coronavirus cases.
Experts told Business Insider that had Trump been reelected, hundreds of thousands of additional lives might have been lost, with schools and businesses likely to have remained open in virus hot spots, and the administration's messaging on masks mixed and politicized.
Biden, meanwhile, has supported masks and social-distancing efforts and could encourage more Americans to adopt these practices, the experts said.
Marissa Levine, a public-health professor at the University of South Florida, said she was particularly hopeful that the Biden administration would go for a federal government-led vaccine-distribution plan, as opposed to the decentralized state-focused effort that the Trump campaign had been working on.
Keola and his family are of Khmu descent, an ethnic minority that the government in Laos doesn't recognize. (photo: Keola Family/Guardian UK
After an Incarcerated Firefighter Was Nearly Killed on the Front Lines, California Delivered Him to ICE
Sam Levin, Guardian UK
Levin writes: "California officials have transferred an incarcerated firefighter who suffered a near-death injury on the frontlines of a major blaze this fall to US immigration, and he is now threatened with deportation to a country his family fled three decades ago."
Bounchan Keola, 39, had just two weeks left in his prison term when he was crushed by a tree while battling the destructive Zogg fire in northern California on 2 October and airlifted to a hospital. Days later, California prison officials notified federal immigration agents that his release would be coming up, and the state, records show, made arrangements to directly transfer him into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Keola could now be deported to Laos, a country he left when he was four.
“I just want to go home and give my mom and dad a hug,” Keola told the Guardian in a recent call from Ice detention. “All I know is I’m American. I’ve never thought of myself not being a citizen. I’m just asking for that one second chance.”
Keola grew up a US permanent resident, and is the latest refugee to face deportation as a result of California’s controversial policy of transferring certain foreign-born prisoners to Ice after they’ve completed their prison sentences, a practice governor Gavin Newsom has supported. Lawmakers across the country, including congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called on Newsom to end the transfers in September, in response to the story of Kao Saelee, another prison firefighter and Laotian refugee sent to Ice.
But the Democratic governor, it appears, has not budged.
Battling blazes: ‘First time I felt free’
Keola, born in 1981, has no memory of Laos. His family is of Khmu descent, an ethnic minority, and escaped the country after the Vietnam war. Keola has fragments of recollections of eating meals at a refugee camp in Thailand, and being terrified on the plane ride to the US.
In San Leandro, California, where the family first resettled, Keola was afraid of attending school, unable to speak English. “I was scared of people with blue eyes and blond hair. I’d never seen those features.”
He showed up to school without lunches and with clothes from Goodwill, he recalled, and was relentlessly bullied for being Asian and poor. He finally found community and protection when he met other Khmu youth in nearby Richmond, but that led him to start drinking in middle school, and he soon got caught up in gang violence. When he was 16, he was riding in a car with friends, and he and a group of them ended up shooting out of the vehicle at someone running toward them, afraid it was a member of a rival gang, he said. Two people were shot and one died.
Keola was prosecuted as an adult and his mother begged him to accept a plea deal, afraid he would be locked away for life if he went to trial. So he agreed to plea to second-degree attempted murder and other serious charges, accepting 28 years. He said he has spent decades behind bars trying to right his wrongs: “I didn’t just harm the victim and his family – I hurt my family and my whole community,” he said. “I can’t take back what I did. But I can make amends and live differently and do whatever I can to help the next person.”
This year, Keola got his first opportunity to give back outside of prison – as a worker on the frontlines of California’s fires, one of thousands of incarcerated people in the state battling blazes, making $3 a day, and $1 an hour when fighting fires.
He knew people compared the work to “slave labor” given the meager wages, but he marveled at the chance to be outside, to put his hands in a river – his first time touching running water since he was a teenager. “There was no fence, no barbed-wire, no tower, nobody with a gun waiting for you. I felt free for the first time in 22 years.”
When passersby honked in support and thanked them, he was stunned. “They treat us like firemen, not inmates. From then on, I knew this is what I was meant to do.”
After years of criticisms that prison firefighters were barred from getting firefighting licenses once released, Newsom signed legislation in September to allow some to have their criminal records expunged so they could join fire crews after prison. Newsom posed for bill-signing photos on land scorched by one of the fires, praising the “inmates who have stood on the frontlines, battling historic fires”.
The legislation meant Keola, who was nearing the end of his sentence and getting early release due to his fire service, could have a shot at a real career.
An injury, then a ‘betrayal’
On 2 October, Keola and his crew were at the fast-spreading Zogg fire near Redding, clearing brush to stop the fire from spreading. Planes above were dumping water, making it hard for them to see, he recalled. Suddenly, he heard his crew members yelling, “Tree!” just before his head was hit and he was knocked down: “I was seeing stars. I couldn’t move. I was laying flat, facedown on the ground.”
Keola had to be airlifted out. The rope hoisting him up got caught on a tree and he started rapidly spinning: “I was thinking, I’m gonna die. I started praying. I was like, God wants me to go. This is my time. I closed my eyes.”
He survived. There were a handful of local news reports on the incident, mentioning two unnamed inmate firefighters suffering injuries.
Keola’s release date was just two weeks away. He thought he might remain in the hospital until then, but instead he was sent back to prison, with recommendations for a follow up medical appointment the day before his release. His medical records list “traumatic neck injury”, and Keola wore a neck brace.
In prison, he wasn’t treated or monitored by doctors, he said. Instead, he was placed in isolation: “I felt like I was being punished because I got hurt. I felt sad and betrayed.” (His records say he was in “quarantine”, suggesting he may have been isolated for Covid protocols.) He was taking ibuprofen everyday, trying to sleep on his stomach due to the pain.
Meanwhile, his family, who lives in Pinole about 22 miles north-east of San Francisco, were making plans for his release. His sister, Thongsouk Keola, 36, said she took a week off work and planned to stay at a hotel near the prison so she could be outside waiting for him on the morning of 16 October.
But two days prior, Ice agents told Keola their agency would be picking him up instead. His stomach started churning., he recalled.
He rang his sister and told her not to bother coming.
“It’s just so unfair. He has served for so many years,” Thongsouk said. “We know he is a different person now. We are here and ready and willing to take him in, and take all responsibility.”
How Newsom could intervene
The California governor’s office has not responded to the Guardian’s repeated inquiries on the state’s policy of transferring prisoners to Ice. At one press conference, Newsom told a reporter it was “appropriate” and has “been done historically”.
That’s despite the fact that the state has no legal obligation to collaborate with Ice and that California has a “sanctuary state” law meant to limit cooperation with immigration authorities and protect residents from deportation. Prison officials, however, say they comply with Ice’s “detainers”, meaning requests for people in custody who the federal government considers eligible for deportation.
That includes longtime residents with green cards who are facing deportation due to convictions. Anoop Prasad, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), and Keola’s lawyer, said it’s unlikely federal agents would have known he was getting out if the state hadn’t alerted Ice.
California has transferred more than 500 people from prison to Ice this year, according to ALC. Prasad and other activists have long been pushing for Newsom to end the policy altogether – and to issue pardons to people such as Keola and Saelee, which would mean they are no longer threatened with deportation.
“Governor Newsom has pointed to pardons as a way to correct past injustices in the criminal system,” said Prasad. He noted that there is also no reason to believe any of this would change under the new administration of president-elect Joe Biden – who has signaled he would continue to deport people with criminal convictions. “It is not enough to just reverse what Donald Trump did. Governor Newsom has to take a hard look at the policies he’s adopted.”
What’s more, the nation of Laos does not recognize the citizenship of Khmu refugees like Keola, so it’s unclear if his birth country would accept him. Still, he is facing deportation hearings, and Prasad and his family fear that Ice could find a way to deport him anyway.
Spokespeople for the governor did not respond to repeated inquiries. Newsom has issued 63 pardons during his tenure, including ten this week to immigrants who would have faced deportation. Keola and Saelee were not on his list.
A spokeswoman for the state corrections department said the agency “does not determine the immigration status of inmates” and that Ice “makes the determination of whether to put a hold or detainer on the inmate”. Keola, she said, was “released” on 16 October. The department declined to comment on Keola’s medical treatment.
After publication, the state corrections spokeswoman said her comments on “transferring inmates to Ice” were also made “on behalf of the Newsom administration”, adding that the transfers are allowed under the state’s sanctuary law. Ice did not initially respond to inquiries, but on Thursday sent an email calling Keola a “Laotian national” and “felon who is subject to removal”, adding, “resident aliens convicted of certain crimes are removable regardless of how long they have resided within the United States”.
In Ice, Keola’s neck pain is on and off. Doctors there told him it appeared he has kidney problems – and shouldn’t have been taking ibuprofen, he said.
He has simple dreams about returning to his family. “I just want to help my mom clean, wash the dishes, do the laundry, even to water her garden. Play with my nephews and nieces. I just want to be there for them.”
If he were to be deported, Keola has one request: that Ice at least let him out briefly so he has one chance to be with his elderly parents outside the walls of prison.
A rainbow is seen over windmills in Oahu, Hawaii. (photo: Naomi Rahim/Getty)
How Biden Can Make Real Climate Progress
Dan Farber, The Revelator
Farber writes: "With the next president of the United States finally decided, we can now begin moving on to the work at hand."
Joe Biden's election creates an exciting opportunity for climate action. But there's one clear hurdle: Unless the January runoff elections in Georgia for two Senate seats deliver surprising success to the Democrats, President-elect Biden will face a Senate led again by Mitch McConnell. That narrows the range of available policy instruments, but Biden should still be able to make real progress.
He has the advantage of the tide moving in the direction of clean energy. Market forces are shifting strongly away from fossil fuels and toward renewables and energy storage. State governments are moving in the same direction. And public opinion has shifted, with more people recognizing the importance of climate change and the benefits of clean energy. The trick will be to leverage these trends into faster and larger changes.
I'd advocate a three-pronged approach to take advantage of these trends: (1) aggressive use of established regulatory tools; (2) funding to improve and deploy new technologies; and (3) government support for state and private sector climate efforts.
The first prong was utilized heavily by the Obama administration.
Like Obama Biden needs to make aggressive use of existing law. Given a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court, it would be best to avoid anything that looks legally innovative and instead push as hard as possible on legally established channels.
That would mean strictly regulating conventional pollution from fossil fuels, using the Clean Air Act as well as other environmental statutes. Additional avenues include ramping up standards for methane emissions, cutting back on leasing public lands for fossil fuels, and higher fuel-efficiency standards.
There will be industry resistance to these efforts, but economic trends may help dampen that.
The second prong is legislative.
Although a GOP or 50-50 Senate will be a challenge, some kinds of legislation may have a chance of sneaking through.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski has an energy bill she has been trying to get to the floor that seems to have bipartisan support. The bill focuses on spending for research and demonstration projects. Even when the GOP controlled Congress during the first two years of Trump's presidency, Congress voted to increase funding for renewable energy for the Defense Department and to increase funding for research into innovative new energy technologies.
If Murkowski and fellow Republican Sen. Susan Collins can be brought on board, it may also be possible to adopt energy-related amendments to must-pass bills.
Finally, increased funding for adaptation-related spending by FEMA, the Defense Department and the Army Corps of Engineers may also be feasible.
The third prong involves climate efforts outside the federal government.
During the Trump administration, many states increased their use of renewable energy and a smaller group have adopted serious carbon reduction targets. The federal government can defend these efforts in court; can provide states technical resources; and can use its regulatory powers over energy markets to reinforce state climate programs.
We've also seen a serious movement by investors away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. The federal government can support these trends through its regulation of financial markets.
And the power of presidential jawboning should not be underestimated. Presidential appeals to business leaders can carry considerable clout, as can public praise or shaming.
Even if Biden is handicapped by the lack of Senate control, a lot can still be done. And the climate crisis is too urgent for us to pass up any available tool for addressing it.
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