President Biden won’t accede to left-wing environmentalist requests to exclude carbon capture and nuclear power from his green infrastructure plans, Gina McCarthy, the top White House climate official, said during remarks at a virtual summit hosted by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Biden “is interested in an all-of-the-above strategy. He really wants to make sure that we have options and opportunities.”
Instead, Biden will find other ways to address the worries raised by activists that those technologies wouldn’t address the pollution harming poorer and minority regions, among other concerns. For instance, the administration will pursue stricter mandates on air pollution coming from power plant smokestacks.
McCarthy, who serves as National Climate Advisor, made these comments in response to concerns raised recently by left-wing climate groups and the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council that certain low-carbon technologies, including carbon capture, direct air capture, and nuclear power, would not alleviate the pollution burden borne by poorer and minority people. Those groups and the council are calling on the Biden administration to avoid investing in those technologies.
Their push is at odds with the view of many centrist environmental groups and top Biden officials, who say the United States won’t meet its aggressive climate goals, including carbon-free power by 2035, without zero-carbon technologies that can run 24/7 and tackle emissions from hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy industry.
See more at the Washington Examiner Biden won’t remove carbon capture and nuclear power from climate plans, White House adviser says by Abby Smith, May 18, 2021.