Signing and Executive Order
We’re putting this out just as the ink is drying on a raft of Executive Orders (EOs) addressing Climate Change (also referred to as “The Climate Catastrophe” in my business). I was not privy to the specifics as I wrote this the night before, but intel has it that Wednesday January 27, was “Climate Day” in the Oval Office. And given that one of the first Executive Orders of the afternoon of January 20 was titled “Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis” (no mincing words here), I am anticipating progress.
Reading through that Executive Order, the text is unequivocal; addressing pretty much what we need to do tol pull ourselves out of four years of environmental vandalism. This includes “immediately” reviewing all actions taken over the last four years in all of the regulatory agencies and rescinding all actions that do not align with the policy purpose of this EO, and rescinding a whole passel of the previous administrations EO’s that by-and-large elevated the failing fossil fuel industry above all other national interests.
I’m down for that!
I am looking forward to the EOs coming out today, particularly if they are a as frank as this one. I anticipate an EO targeting the 2017-2024 Outer Continental Shelf oil leasing plan, which those of us in the Outer Continental Shelf Coalition are weaving into text for the Ocean Climate Solutions Act for a permanent moratorium on offshore oil leasing.
I would like to see some advanced strategic policies on our national transportation infrastructure (which the previous administration tried to tangle into a 30 year future dependency on fossil fuel), and perhaps a tip of the hat toward localizing economies, and bringing manufacturing jobs back home. (The fact of the matter is that globalized trade pencils out well if economics is the only metric. But chickens grown in the US, then shipped to China for processing, to then be shipped back to the US for sale and consumption exacts a steep climate – and ocean noise cost.)
At the end of today we’ll know a lot more, but as this new administration is currently trending, I may be able to throttle back on all of the policy wonk stuff and dive back into marine bioacoustics and ocean noise issues.
May it be so!
P.S. As I post this: We haven’t reviewed all of the EOs, but this Fact Sheet provides some of the details. Included in the EOs are “hitting pause on new oil and gas leasing, creating jobs by investing in renewable energy and restoration, and conserving 30% of America’s lands and ocean by 2030.” Not bad for a day’s work!
