Haisten Willis of the Washington Examiner reports on negative reaction to one of President Biden’s latest plans.
President Joe Biden has drawn a fierce backlash to the “environmental justice” executive order he signed last week.
Conservatives and Republicans are hitting out at the proposal, calling it another example of executive overreach that will raise energy costs and make the United States more reliant on China.
“While we all want a clean environment, the Biden administration’s environmental executive order is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for radical policies that drive up the cost of traditional energy, which is a major input cost for small businesses,” said Alfredo Ortiz, CEO of Job Creators Network.
That was part of a larger backlash to the order, which is one of several that Biden has made in recent weeks. Competitive Enterprise Institute fellow Wayne Crews described the action as “an abuse of federal power and a serious intrusion into our lives and economic opportunities.”
The order, which Biden signed Friday, directs federal agencies to prioritize issues of environmental justice, the latest in a series of steps from the administration as it seeks to deliver on its goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
It also “makes clear that the pursuit of environmental justice is a duty of all executive branch agencies and should be incorporated into their missions,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
Among other things, federal agencies will be required to prevent adverse environmental and health impacts on certain communities and are called on to “actively facilitate meaningful public participation and equal treatment.”
“Under this order, environmental justice will become the responsibility of every single federal agency,” Biden said Friday during a speech in the White House Rose Garden. “Environmental Justice will be the mission of the entire government, woven directly into how we work with state, local, tribal, and territorial governments.”
