‘Defining moment’: how can the US end its dependency on fossil fuels?

Democrats hope climate measures in Build Back Better will be resurrected amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but green groups want Biden to go even further

As Joe Biden ratchets up the pressure on Russia by banning imports of its oil, American drivers grumble about rising gasoline prices and the oil and gas industry clamors for more land to drill, a more fundamental demand has emerged – for the US to decisively cut its umbilical reliance upon fossil fuels.

Environmental groups and progressive Democrats are aiming to build upon the backlash to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by ending the era of fossil fuel dependency and help address the unfolding climate crisis.

“This moment is a clarion call for the urgent need to transition to domestic clean energy so that we are never again complicit in fossil-fueled conflict,” said Ed Markey, the Democratic senator who helped devise the Green New Deal platform.

The climate measures in Biden’s moribund Build Back Better legislation may now be resurrected, Democrats hope, with several of the party’s senators unveiling a flurry of bills to ensure renewable energy replaces the banned Russian oil imports and to tax oil companies enjoying a financial bonanza from oil prices that have soared due to the crisis in Ukraine.

Green groups want Biden to go even further.

More than 200 environmental and indigenous organizations have signed a letter demanding he use the Defense Production Act, normally used in times of war to compel companies to churn out tanks, aircraft and other weapons, to force businesses to produce solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps and other climate-friendly material.

“Biden is in the ideal position to declare a national climate emergency and use his existing emergency powers to push the accelerator on renewable energy,” said Jean Su, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the signatories.

“There’s a war with a fossil fuel oligarch and we are in a climate war, so we need to attack this on a wartime footing. The best thing we can do is defend the world from the violence of fossil fuel combustion. This is the defining moment of the Biden presidency and of the climate emergency itself.”

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