Biden’s climate blind spot

President Joe Biden was right when he told world leaders in 2021 that this is “the decisive decade” to act on climate. Since then, Biden has focused on an essential part of the puzzle by boosting clean energy technologies. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — Biden’s signature climate achievement — invests an impressive $369 billion toward this plan.

In spite of this leadership, Biden has a climate blind spot. Like a driver unaware of an onrushing truck, the president is ignoring the oil and gas industry’s bold and reckless plans to keep America addicted to fossil fuels.

Solving climate change requires rapidly ratcheting down oil and gas, which account for 60 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. A sobering energy forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently warned U.S. oil and gas production would increase steadily in the coming decades, despite the IRA efforts.

Left unchecked, this path will sink plans to cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Increased oil and gas production can fundamentally upend climate calculations. According to a “high oil and gas supply” scenario included with EIA’s forecast, half of the CO2 reductions from the IRA could be wiped out within a decade if U.S. oil and gas supplies are higher than expected. By 2045, all of the IRA’s climate benefits could be erased.

Relying entirely on demand-reduction strategies to cut total emissions is like squeezing one end of a balloon. If supplies continue to grow, emissions will merely shift to areas of emissions growth, such as oil and gas production and the industrial sector.  According to EIA, oil and gas emissions from the U.S. industrial sector could increase by 30 percent by 2050.

The math doesn’t add up. We can’t achieve net-zero emissions without phasing out fossil fuel supplies. New fossil fuel infrastructure will lock in emissions, slow growth in clean energy jobs and undermine the president’s climate and environmental justice goals.

The blind spot was on display recently when Biden announced important Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules to curb climate pollution from tailpipes. “As a car enthusiast and self-proclaimed car guy, President Biden is seizing the moment,” according to the White House.

The next evening the Biden administration quietly approved the Alaska LNG Project, greenlighting construction of 800 miles of new pipeline and liquefaction infrastructure as part of a 30-year plan to move gas from Alaska’s North Slope to Asian markets.

The Alaska LNG Project’s climate footprint — 2.7 billion metric tons of carbon pollution over the project’s lifetime, according to Department of Energy (DOE) estimates — is equivalent to one-quarter of all the carbon pollution savings expected from EPA’s new tailpipe rules for cars, SUVs, buses, and freight trucks.

DOE estimates that the Alaska LNG Project would result in as much as $350 billion in climate damages. Still, they approved the project because it would ostensibly only “contribute incrementally to climate change.” We don’t call these damages incremental when deadly wildfires, storms, floods and droughts hit communities. We call them an emergency.

Every fossil fuel project contributes incrementally to climate change. That’s how we got into this climate mess. This is one in a long line of “incremental” projects, with two dozen more LNG projects waiting in the wings.

Biden’s EPA accurately states, “the science is clear that no new oil, gas, or coal development is permissible if the world is to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050,” as determined by the International Energy Agency. This conclusion is backed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading scientific body on climate change.

As the planet overheats, Biden has sent the fire brigade through the front door to put out the fire. But he has left the back door wide open to oil and gas companies intent on simultaneously pouring fuel onto the fire.

Flush with record-shattering profits, oil companies are pursuing three strategies to boost production and open new markets to soak up fresh supplies.

First, the industry aims to triple U.S. LNG exports. In addition to opening new gas markets, LNG exports drive up domestic energy prices and pad industry profits. Big Oil and Big Gas want more.

Second, industry is planning an enormous expansion of petrochemicals and plastics. According to billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg, who recently launched the Beyond Petrochemical Campaign, more than 120 projects are planned in the U.S. These plants, of course, need oil and gas for energy and to produce plastics. Most of these projects target locations where there are low-income communities and communities of color, dumping more toxic pollution in vulnerable neighborhoods that Biden has promised to protect.  

Third, oil companies hope to surge oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters to record levels, despite Biden’s campaign promise of “no more drilling on federal lands, period, period, period, period.” Federal data show the Biden administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands than the Trump administration in its first two years in office.

Last month, Biden approved the Willow drilling project on public lands in Alaska and auctioned off oil leases for 73 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico, roughly the size of Arizona.

Biden’s electoral base is unhappy with the president’s embrace of oil and gas production. Social media videos opposing Willow, which opponents call a “carbon bomb,” struck a nerve and went viral. They reached more than 100 million views. More than 5 million people signed petitions opposing the project.

Approval of Biden’s handling of climate change has dropped markedly in recent months among likely voters, especially Democrats and youth voters. Only 4 percent of voters under age 30 — a core Biden constituency — strongly approve of his job handling the climate crisis.

What can Biden do? The buck stops with the president. Industry’s plans require permit approvals from the Biden administration. Federal agencies are on autopilot, approving permits one at a time without looking at the big picture.

When President Obama denied the Keystone XL pipeline in 2015, it was only after he had hit the reset button on how federal agencies were assessing the permit. “We’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky,” he said.

Biden needs his own Keystone moment to stave off a massive fossil fuel buildout under his watch.

Jeremy Symons writes and consults on energy and climate change. He was the project manager of Climate 21, a blueprint for “whole-of-government” presidential climate leadership. He previously worked at Environmental Defense Fund, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and for Democrats in the United States Senate.