|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Reagan Reese (Daily Caller)
White House officials are weighing whether to declare a national climate emergency several months out from the 2024 election, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
President Joe Biden’s top advisers have returned to conversations about declaring such a national climate emergency, though those in discussion appear to be divided on the move, the sources told Bloomberg. While the move, the sources say, would stunt offshore drilling and curb greenhouse gas emissions, others think the move would help energize youth voters, particularly those with a focus on climate, Bloomberg reported. (RELATED: Biden Reportedly Plans To Go Full Steam Ahead With Same Strategy Despite Disastrous Polling)
“President Biden has treated the climate crisis as an emergency since day one and will continue to build a clean energy future that lowers utility bills, creates good-paying union jobs, makes our economy the envy of the world and prioritizes communities that for too long have been left behind,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez told the outlet while not commenting directly on the reported discussions.
The decision, Bloomberg notes, has not been made and such conversations could carry on for as long as several years. The president’s administration previously considered a similar measure in 2022 once negotiations over clean-energy legislation failed, Bloomberg reported. Biden also said he had declared a climate emergency in 2023 when he implemented “conservation policies,” the outlet reported.
\
Ahead of the 2024 election, such a move could help Biden win over some of the youth vote as the president trails hypothetical matchups with former President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported.
The Sunrise Movement, Fridays For Future USA and the Campus Climate Network, all youth climate activist networks, are planning protests surrounding Earth Day in an effort to put pressure on the president to declare a climate emergency, Bloomberg reported.
“If Biden wants to win the youth vote, he needs to take forceful action on climate change,” Aru Shiney-Ajay, the Sunrise Movement’s executive director, told the outlet.
While Biden has a lead over Trump with youth voters, the margins aren’t where they should be to help the president confidently secure reelection, Politico Playbook reported. With registered Americans under 30 years old, Biden leads the former president 50% to 37%, according to Harvard’s Institute of Politics April poll.
“For a Democrat to comfortably win the Electoral College, he or she needs to win 60 percent of the youth vote. Biden and Obama, ’12 and ’20, won 60 percent. Obama got 66 percent in ’08. [John] Kerry and Hillary Clinton got 55 percent,” John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, told Politico Playbook. “Biden is in the mid-50s. Can you improve that to get to 60 percent? It’s within reach. But he’s going to have to get younger men and young men of color, younger men who are white, younger men in the suburbs and their urban areas to turn out.”
