White House Climate Adviser Has An Answer For Joe Manchin: ‘Climate Is a Code Red Now’
However, she still calls senator a "strong partner"
As he's tried to spin and justify his last-minute efforts to scuttle the comprehensive $3.5 trillion spending package Senate Democrats have been advancing in recent weeks, conservative Democratic Sen Joe Manchin has repeatedly questioned the “urgency” of approving this legislation this year.
“What's the urgency? What's the urgency that we have?” the junior senator from West Virginia asked Sunday during an on-air interview with CNN.
White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy has an answer for Senator Manchin: global climate change.
The issue of climate change has once again become prominent as severe storms, such as the recent Hurricane Ida, left stunning death and destruction in its wake.
The remnants of Ida particularly struck hard at the northeastern part of the United States earlier this month, bringing record-breaking rain, drowning more than 40 people in their homes and cars. No longer classified a hurricane by the time it hit the Northeast, the storm nonetheless killed at least 46 people from Maryland to Connecticut on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, according to news reports.
At least 23 people died in New Jersey and at least 13 people were killed in New York City, police said, 11 of them in flooded basement apartments, which often serve as relatively affordable homes in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets.
This is prompting state governors, such as Kathy Hochul of New York and Phil Murphy, of New Jersey, to want the federal government to pump the accelerator on climate change action at precisely the moment Manchin's seeking to “press the pause button” on the $3.5 trillion package, which has been described as “the largest investment in addressing climate that this country has ever, ever seen,” according to Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), who has been overseeing the legislation as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
And McCarthy, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who now advises President Biden on climate matters, agrees with the need to move urgently.
The president will be traveling the country, thanking those on the front lines of dealing with the consequences of climate change, she added.
“Well, I think that's what the goal of the president is, as he’s traveling, both last week to New York and to New Jersey, today as you mentioned, he’s going to Boise, Idaho to thank the firefighters who are working so hard, and to show his support for all of the efforts underway to -- to not just tackle these wildfires but to do it in a way that keeps our firefighters safe, and keeps money coming to those states so we can continue to expand those efforts,” McCarthy said Monday. “And in Sacramento, he’s going to go down there because we are talking about thousands of buildings being displaced. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of acres actually being burned.
“So he’s going to point out the challenges that we’re facing today that let everybody know that climate is a code red now. We have to take action,” she added.
“Asking All The Right Questions”
At the same time, McCarthy sought to appear to take Manchin's concerns seriously.
“We know that Senator Manchin is pushing hard. He’s asking all the right questions. The issue is that we have answers to these questions, and we will work with him because he’s a strong partner here,” she said. “We know we have to get these investments. We are not simply paying utilities to get better, we’re assuring, again, a safe and healthy future. We need to accelerate what is already happening big time because we cannot afford to sit back and let nature take its course.
“Today the president showing how nature will take its course if we don’t act and we don’t start investing. So we fully intend to work with the senator, and we are, to conduct analysis so he can see what’s happening on the ground now, and we can talk about how much these investments need to accelerate the shift to clean energy,” McCarthy added. “How many jobs can actually grow when you take these actions. How it is time today to make these investments in our future, and our economic future.
“You know, Kate, for every dollar that we spend today, you’re going to save $6 over time because we won’t be investing in the kind of destruction and rebuild that we would otherwise have to do if we build resilient infrastructure from this point forward, if we work with utilities,” McCarthy told interviewer, CNN's Kate Bolduan.
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