President Biden took executive action on Jan. 27 to tackle the climate crisis both at home and abroad.
“These Executive Orders follow through on President Biden’s promise to take aggressive action to tackle climate change and build on the executive actions that the President took on his first day in office, including rejoining the Paris Agreement and immediate review of harmful rollbacks of standards that protect our air, water, and communities,” the White House said in a release.
Biden has set ambitious goals to make sure that America and the world can meet the urgent demands of the climate crisis, while empowering American workers and businesses to lead a clean energy revolution that achieves a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and puts the U.S. on an irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050.
“Today’s actions advance those goals and ensure that we are tapping into the talent, grit, and innovation of American workers, revitalizing the U.S. energy sector, conserving our natural resources and leveraging them to help drive our nation toward a clean energy future, creating well-paying jobs with the opportunity to join a union, and delivering justice for communities who have been subjected to environmental harm,” the White House said.
By signing this Executive Order, Biden has directed his administration to:
1. Center the climate crisis in U.S. foreign policy and national security considerations.
2. Take a whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis.
3. Leverage the federal government’s footprint and buying power to lead by example.
4. Rebuild our infrastructure for a sustainable economy.
5. Advance conservation, agriculture and reforestation.
6. Revitalize energy communities.
7. Secure environmental justice and spur economic opportunity.
The order instructs the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to collect input from farmers, ranchers and other stakeholders on how to use federal programs to encourage adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices that produce verifiable carbon reductions and sequestrations and create new sources of income and jobs for rural Americans.
“U.S. pork producers are proud of their environmental stewardship efforts and we look forward to working with the Biden administration to discuss solutions to climate change, both now and in the future,” said the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) in a statement.
NPPC plans to share with USDA how it supports a number of efforts to increase efficiency efforts and further reduce the pork industry’s climate footprint, including:
> voluntary, incentive-based tools to maximize the sequestration of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions.
> public and private sector tools to incentivize farmers to prioritize and scale climate-smart practices.
> incentives supporting the capture of valuable nutrients from on-farm manure and recycling it as a locally produced natural fertilizer and soil conditioner.
> incentives related to biogas capture from manure management systems and the associated infrastructure required to bring it to market.
> incentives for farmers to reduce energy consumption, increase use of on-farm renewable energy and make continued progress toward reducing the lifecycle GHG emissions of agriculture and forestry-based renewable energy.
In addition, the order also re-establishes the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Read more:
Pork Producers Protect the Environment—Campaign Shows Public How
Livestock Producers on Level Playing Field Thanks to MOU Between USDA and FDA
USDA Announces Fifth Round in Farmers to Families Food Box Program
