WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday proposed $14 billion in spending on initiatives to fight climate change in the 2022 budget, including large cash injections for environmental regulation and science research.
The proposal underscores the administration’s ambitions to decarbonizing the economy by 2050 to stem global warming, reversing a policy direction set by former President Donald Trump to slash red tape that hindered fossil fuel production.
Biden’s so-called “skinny”, or preliminary, budget proposal includes $11.1 billion for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a 21.3% boost over last year’s enacted level.
It also includes $10.2 billion for the National Science Foundation, up 20% from the 2021 enacted level, with $500 million of that going to climate and clean energy research.
An administration official told reporters that the infusion of funding would help restore the federal government’s ability to respond to climate change after the previous administration slashed funding for scientific and regulatory agencies.
“Despite the growing threat of climate change, we’ve cut funding for climate science and technology,” the official said, adding the new funding would “help restore the capacity needed to carry out core climate functions, to secure environmental justice for communities that have been left behind and to help developing countries reduce emissions.”
The budget includes major new climate change investments and financial support for communities hardest hit by pollution or by the rapid transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The proposals allocates the largest amount ever to invest marginalized and overburdened communities – $1.4 billion, including $936 million toward a new Accelerating Environmental and Economic Justice initiative at the EPA, as well as $100 million to develop a new community air quality monitoring and notification program.
It also invests $550 million in a program to remediate abandoned oil and gas wells nationwide, tripling current funding, an effort that would create 250,000 jobs.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
